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The Epoch Times is an independent voice in print and on the web. We report news responsibly and truthfully so that readers can improve their own lives and increase their understanding and respect for their neighbors next door and around the globe.Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:22:31 +0000en-UShourly1Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant Opens in Norwayhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/europes-first-underwater-restaurant-opens-in-norway_2847710.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:12:54 +0000BAALY, Norway—Europe’s first underwater restaurant opened in Norway on March 20 with more than 7,000 customers booked in to eat among the fish.

Situated on the southern tip of Norway, the restaurant looks like a large concrete tube partly submerged in the North Sea. It is called Under, which also means “wonder” in Norwegian.

It was designed by Norwegian architecture firm Snoehetta, which also created the Opera house in Oslo and the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York.

“The fascination is just this movement from above water to underwater through the building … The big window exposes the underwater not like an aquarium, it’s the real thing,” Snoehetta’s founder Kjetil Traedal Thorsen told Reuters.

Entering Under initially feels like going into a sauna, as wooden planks cover its upper section, but an eight-meter flight of stairs leads down to a large dining area that sits about 40 guests, walled by a gigantic transparent window to the ocean.

Traedal Thorsen said the construction can cope with very harsh weather and is shaped in such a way that it can withstand what he called “the wave of the century.”

The restaurant is laid out so there are minimal reflections in the glass wall, which fills the room with natural light during the day, filtered by the greenish color of the water.

A full 18-course meal, based on local ingredients and seafood, can cost up to 3,700 crowns ($430) per person including drinks.

“The goal is to get 50 percent of the guests who eat there to spend the night in the hotel as well … We expect around 12,000 people eating dinner every year,” said Gaute Ubostad, one of two brothers who own the restaurant and a nearby hotel.

There are only a handful of underwater restaurants around the world, mainly found in tropical waters like the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

By Lefteris Karagiannopoulos

]]>No-Deal Beckons: EU Presses May on Brexithttps://www.theepochtimes.com/no-deal-beckons-eu-presses-may-on-brexit_2847673.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:03:06 +0000BRUSSELS—French President Emmanuel Macron warned Prime Minister Theresa May on March 21 that Britain would face a disorderly departure from the European Union if she fails to get parliamentary approval for her deal on the third attempt next week.

Just eight days before Britain is due to leave the EU, May was making a last-ditch plea to the bloc’s 27 other leaders in Brussels to hand her a Brexit delay until June 30, a request she said was “a matter of personal regret” and one she firmly pinned on her country’s deeply divided parliament.

EU leaders are expected to grant her two extra months to organize a smooth exit—but only on the condition that the British leader can get her deal through parliament, something even members of her own government increasingly doubt.

If she fails, leaders expect to meet again next week, to consider either a delay until next year to let Britain radically re-think its Brexit plans—or pulling the plug and letting it crash out into legal limbo next Friday.

“We must be clear, to ourselves, our British friends, and our people,” Macron said on arrival at the 24-hour summit.

“Firstly, we’ve been negotiating the withdrawal agreement for two years. It cannot be renegotiated. Secondly, in the event of another no vote in Britain, we will be heading towards a no-deal. Everyone knows it.”

European leaders must not let the turmoil surrounding Brexit drag on, the French leader said.

The EU’s negotiator Michel Barnier said with a note of resignation, “We have done our best. Now the solution is in London.”

May said she was still working on getting parliament’s support for her deal, which envisages close economic ties with the EU after Brexit.

“I am still working on ensuring that parliament can agree a deal so that we can leave in an orderly way,” she told reporters, referring to talks ministers are having with pro-Brexit members of her Conservative Party and lawmakers in the Northern Irish party, the DUP, which props up her government.

“A short extension would give parliament the time to make a final choice that delivers on the result of the referendum.”

French President Emmanuel Macron talks to the media as he arrives for a European Union leaders summit in Brussels on March 21, 2019. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

EU diplomats said her request for a delay to June 30 was likely to be met by an EU preference for Britain to have completed formalities and begin a status-quo transition to departure before Europeans elect a new parliament from May 23.

“With regard to the date of June 30, we have to take into consideration that we have European elections in May,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“We can discuss this wish next week if we have a positive vote in the British parliament on the exit agreement.”

Chaotic

May’s chances hang in the balance, with positions hardening after a chaotic week when the parliament’s speaker questioned whether she could even bring her deal to a third vote.

The DUP, which gives May’s government a majority in parliament, said it was no closer to backing her agreement, the party’s Brexit spokesman said on March 21, while euroskeptics also say they could never approve something they say would trap Britain in the EU’s orbit indefinitely.

In a challenge to May, opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was also in Brussels, speaking to EU officials about his alternative plan for Brexit, which he says could be negotiated during an extension and pass through parliament.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar summed up the situation in London, with no little understatement, as “somewhat chaotic.”

“We need to cut the entire British establishment a little bit of slack on this and support their request … for a short extension,” he told reporters. “No deal will only ever be a British choice.”

With parliament and political parties divided, deadlock could mean Britain lurching by default into legal limbo outside the EU at 11 p.m. on March 29.

If the deal is saved, EU leaders would sign off remotely next week on an extension of the deadline to mid-May, or perhaps the end of June, before the new EU parliament convenes.

But if May fails next week, leaders expect to return for an emergency council at which Britain could either be given another year or more to sort out its crisis—if it can convince them it has a plan to do that—or be told it is leaving on Friday.

The other 27 states have struggled for three years since Britain voted 52-48 percent to leave to avoid disruption to their own economies and citizens of a hard Brexit.

Many now fear simply rolling over the problem for more weeks and months with no clear resolution in sight is doing more harm to the EU than good.

As Brexit is sapping EU resources, the leaders will also turn to other pressing issues, including the state of their economies, ties with China, and ringfencing the European elections from illegitimate interference.

By Richard Lough and William James

]]>Jihadi Bride’s Family Challenge Government Decision to Strip Citizenshiphttps://www.theepochtimes.com/jihadi-brides-family-challenge-government-decision-to-strip-citizenship_2847319.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 15:55:56 +0000Jihadi bride, Shamima Begum’s family has formally launched a court challenge against the British government’s decision to strip her of citizenship, arguing that other Britons that joined ISIS have been allowed back into the country.

Tasnime Akunjee, the lawyer representing Begum’s family, told The Guardian that revoking her citizenship and blocking her return to the UK violates her human rights.

“We are arguing the decision is wrong because it renders Shamima Begum stateless, it puts her life at risk, exposes her to inhumane and degrading treatment, and breaches her right to family life,” Akunjee told the Guardian.

Renu, the eldest sister of Shamima Begum, holds her sister’s photo during a media interview at New Scotland Yard, in London, on Feb. 22, 2015. (Laura Lean/PA Wire/Getty Images)

Citing a persistent security risk posed by the unrepentant Begum, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her citizenship in a move allowed under law if it does not leave the individual stateless.

Javid wrote in a letter to Begum’s family that he believed she would be eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship.

Bangladesh Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam said there is “no question” of his country opening its doors to Begum, who in interviews said she did not regret joining ISIS and seemed to excuse terror attacks on civilians.

Begum ran away from her London home in 2015 and at the age of 15 traveled to Syria with two other girls to join the ISIS terror group.

She married a Dutch terrorist fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom have died due to malnutrition and illness.

The 19-year-old Begum surfaced in a refugee camp last month, where she appealed to be allowed back into the UK, claiming in an interview with Sky News that during her four years with the jihadis she was “just a housewife” and “never did anything dangerous.”

‘No Regrets’

Begum said in an interview with The Times of London that while she did not agree with everything the terror group had done, she has “no regrets” about joining ISIS and suggested that air strikes against the terror group in Syria somehow “justified” the Manchester Arena terror attack.

“It’s a two-way thing, really,” she told the BBC, adding that the suicide bomber that killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was a “kind of retaliation” for bombardments of ISIS-held enclaves, adding, “So I thought, ok, that is a fair justification.”

"I didn't want to be IS poster girl" – London teenager Shamima Begum, who fled to join Islamic State group in Syria, says she now wants the UK's forgiveness

Asked about her take on the particularly graphic atrocities the jihadi extremists are known to have carried out, Begum told The Times of London that seeing “beheaded heads” in bins “did not faze her.” When asked by a Sky News reporter, “Did you know what Islamic State [ISIS] were doing when you left for Syria?”

“Because they had beheaded people. There were executions,” she replied, “Yeah, I knew about those things and I was okay with it.”

‘Potentially Very Dangerous’

Security experts such as British intelligence service head Alex Younger have warned, however, that would-be returnees like Begum were “potentially very dangerous” because they were in “that sort of position,” people like her were likely to have acquired certain “skills or connections.”

Survivors and other victims of the murderous cult’s reign of terror, meanwhile, are furious at the prospect of ISIS women getting a sympathetic hearing in the Western press, or worse—a free pass.

Ali Y. Al-Baroodi, who survived ISIS’s bloody occupation of Mosul, told the Jerusalem Post that claims on the part of jihadi brides that they were “just housewives,” as Begum has insisted, are not credible.

“It was hell on Earth and every single one of them made it so,” he said, asking sarcastically if perhaps local victims of the jihadi women should “apologize for disturbing their stay there.”

“It’s impossible to muster sympathy for her,” author and academic Idrees Ahmad wrote in reference to Begum, according to the Post. “She went to Syria as a colonizer, several months after ISIS beheaded journalists and aid workers.”

The Family’s Appeal

Begum’s family lawyer said that the decision to strip her of citizenship is unfair because hundreds of British citizens who went to ISIS territory have been allowed back into the UK.

“The government has accepted that 400 people have picked up a gun and actively fought for ISIS and then been allowed back to Britain,” Akunjee said, according to The Metro. “So how can it be proportionate for a 19-year-old girl who had a child not to be allowed to return, when the others have been allowed to return?”

The British Home secretary, meanwhile, has stood behind the government’s decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship and keep her out of the country.

Javid was cited by the BBC as saying he would not “shy away from using those powers at my disposal to protect this country” and urged British citizens never to support the cause of terror.

]]>Dutch Suspect in Tram Shooting to Face Terrorism Chargehttps://www.theepochtimes.com/dutch-suspect-in-tram-shooting-to-face-terrorism-charge_2847403.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 15:14:11 +0000THE HAGUE, Netherlands—The main suspect in a deadly tram shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht will be charged with offenses including multiple murder or manslaughter with a terrorist intent, prosecutors said Thursday, March 21.

Investigations so far into Monday’s shooting that left three dead and three seriously injured indicate that the shooter acted alone, prosecutors said in a written statement.

The main suspect, identified by police as Gokmen Tanis, a 37-year-old man of Turkish descent, also faces charges of attempted murder or manslaughter and making threats with a terrorist intent.

The prosecution office statement adds that investigations are continuing into whether the suspect’s actions “flowed from personal problems combined with a radicalized ideology.”

Prosecutors say they will charge the main suspect in the deadly Utrecht tram shooting with offences including multiple murder or manslaughter with a terrorist intent. https://t.co/dhwRIYOWqX

The team investigating the shooting will ask a forensic psychiatry and psychology institute to carry out a personality test on the suspect.

Tanis is to appear before an investigating judge on Friday. Such hearings are held behind closed doors.

A 40-year-old man detained Tuesday afternoon is still under investigation to establish “if he possibly had a supporting role, outside the shooting incident,” prosecutors said.

Dutch counter-terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, on Mar. 18, 2019. (Peter Dejong/AP Photo)

Two men and a woman were killed Monday when a shooter opened fire on a tram in Utrecht. Authorities put the Netherlands’ fourth largest city in lockdown for hours amid fears that more than one shooter was active at different locations.

Prosecutors have said they were focused on a possible terrorist motive because of the nature of the shooting—they say none of the victims was known to the alleged shooter—and because of a note found in a getaway car. They have not disclosed what was written in the note.

A silent march is planned for Friday evening in Utrecht to commemorate the victims.

]]>China Urges US to Block Taiwan President’s Hawaii Stop-Overhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/china-urges-us-to-block-taiwan-presidents-hawaii-stop-over_2847465.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 15:10:14 +0000BEIJING/TAIPEI—China urged the United States on March 21 not to allow Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to stop over in Hawaii next week when she makes a tour of the island’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific.

Tsai said she will transit Hawaii on her way home from an eight-day visit to Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands, which began on Thursday.

Tsai’s tour comes amid heightened tension between Taipei and Beijing, which has stepped up diplomatic and military pressure to assert its sovereignty over self-governed Taiwan.

Taipei is battling to prevent its remaining 17 allies from switching allegiance to China, almost all small, less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, such as Belize and Nauru.

Tsai said in a statement before setting off on the tour that it was her duty to promote Taiwan internationally.

“Letting the country advance down the right path, and letting Taiwan continue to shine on the world stage, are all things that must be done as president, and I will go all out,” she said.

Taipei has accused Beijing of offering generous aid and loan packages to lure its allies away.

Last year, China persuaded the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso and El Salvador to forge relations with Beijing in what Tsai called “increasingly out of control” behavior.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had lodged “stern representations” over Tsai’s planned stopover in the United States.

“We have consistently and resolutely opposed the United States or other countries which have diplomatic relations with China arranging this kind of transit,” Geng told reporters in Beijing.

China views Taiwan as merely a wayward province, with no right to state-to-state relations.

The United States, like most other countries, has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is the island’s largest weapons supplier and most powerful international backer.

China and the United States are trying to end a bitter trade war and they also have differences over Chinese activity in the disputed South China Sea, as well as over human rights.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in January Beijing reserved the right to use force to bring Taiwan under its control but will strive to achieve peaceful “reunification,” though democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by Beijing.

China’s hostility to Taiwan has grown since Tsai’s election in 2016 as Beijing fears she wishes to push for the island’s formal independence.

Tsai says she wants to maintain the status quo, but will defend Taiwan’s democracy.

On March 11, Tsai called a national security meeting, during which she urged the administration to counter Xi’s “one country, two systems” proposal that Beijing uses to push for “reunification” with Taiwan.

Tsai called on government officials to come up with measures to “counter” China’s renewed efforts to “interfere” and to “absorb” Taiwan’s capital and talents.

“The Beijing authorities continue to utilize our open and free system of democracy to interfere with Taiwan’s political, economic and social developments, which has become the biggest risk in Taiwan,” Tsai said in a statement.

By Yimou Lee & Twinnie Siu

]]>Brazil’s New President Says What He and Trump Have in Common: ‘We Are God-Fearing Men’https://www.theepochtimes.com/brazils-new-president-says-what-he-and-trump-have-in-common-we-are-god-fearing-men_2847277.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:27:58 +0000

Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro sat down with American media after his meeting with President Donald Trump Tuesday.

He discussed his desire to “make Brazil great” and how he owes his life “to God” after being stabbed on the campaign trail.

Brazil had been ruled by politicians from the left for years, and Bolsonaro is the country’s first conservative leader in its democratic era.

Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, wants to “make Brazil great” and says he owes his life “to God” after being stabbed on the campaign trail, according to his interview with American media following his meeting with President Donald Trump Tuesday, March 19.

The U.S. and Brazil have had a fraught relationship in the past, but Bolsonaro and Trump want to turn over a new leaf. They have not, for example, ruled out cooperating in military action in Venezuela, where socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro’s regime is in turmoil.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro presents a Brazil national soccer team jersey to U.S. President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on March 19, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

“To a large extent, I support what Trump does; he wants to make America great, I also want to make Brazil great. I also have concerns about the indiscriminate entrance of foreigners without any criteria. But beyond this, we are both Christians and we are God-fearing men,” Bolsonaro told Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in an interview published Wednesday.

Bolsonaro’s election marked a turn in his home country as well. Brazil had been ruled by politicians from the left for years, and Bolsonaro is the country’s first conservative leader in its democratic era, reported CBN.

“It is time to overcome old resistances and explore the very best potential between Brazil and the United States. After all, it is fair to say that today, Brazil does have a president who is not anti-American,” Bolsonaro said in the White House Rose Garden Tuesday, according to CBN.

The Brazilian politician also discussed the stabbing that almost cost him his life when he was a leading candidate in his country’s presidential election in 2018. The man who allegedly stabbed him was a former member of a socialist political party and sympathizer of radically left leaders.

“Doctors who attended to me said that for every 100 stabbings of the kind I endured, only one person survives. So, I am a survivor and owe my life to God. It was His will for me to live,” Bolsonaro told CBN.

Prompted by Bolsonaro’s White House visit, progressive U.S. lawmakers piled on criticism of the Brazilian leader after decrying U.S. action in Venezuela against Maduro.

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar wrote on Twitter Tuesday that Bolsonaro has “praised torture,” “called refugees ‘scum of the world,’” “compared same-sex adoption to pedophilia,” “expressed admiration for Brazil’s military dictatorship” and “called for extrajudicial killings.”

“We must call out human rights abuses worldwide,” concluded Omar, who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

This was not the first time Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns about Bolsonaro. California Rep. Ro Khanna, former Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison (whom Omar succeeded) and 16 others wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling Bolsonaro a “far-right extremist” before his election, reported Politico. They also claimed Bolsonaro said he would not accept defeat should he lose the election.

Brazil recognized Guaido over Maduro in January. Maduro compared Bolsonaro to former German dictator Adolf Hitler in a speech on Jan. 14 after he questioned the integrity of Venezuela’s elections.

The condition, known as “fetus in fetu” occurs is formed in a similar way to Siamese twins.

When an embryo divides a week after conception, identical twins are produced. But when division happens in the second week, the twin embryos fail to fully separate, resulting in Siamese twins. If it splits in the third week, the twin embryos do not form equally: only one develops a connection to the mother that grows into an umbilical cord. The other embryo draws its nutrients from the stronger twin embryo, which grows around it.

Such cases are incredibly rare and have always been discovered after birth when doctors operate on what they believed to be cysts.

In the case of Itzamara, as 25-week scan had revealed what medics thought to be cysts. But a further scan at 35 weeks revealed something new, obstetrician Dr. Parra-Saavedra told Channel1.

“Analyzing it with 3D ultrasound, 4D, and with color Doppler ultrasound we saw that what I really had was not a cyst but an amniotic sac inside which there was an embryo, it measured 45 millimeters and this surprised us a lot inside a fetus,” he said.

Two weeks later, another scan revealed that the fetus had grown over 20-30 percent in mass, potentially endangering the life of the unborn baby, risking crushing its internal organs.

The as-yet-unborn baby’s mother, Monica Vega had also begun to develop preeclampsia.

The doctors decided the best course of action was for the baby to be born by emergency caesarian, and the fetus removed as soon as possible.

Doctors were stunned to find a fetus with arms and still growing inside a newborn

“Once we cut the umbilical cord [of the attached twin], the baby’s life ended because it was surviving off its sister,” Parra-Saavedra told the Herald.

According to Parra-Saavedra, the family found it hard to grasp what was happening at first.

“After we showed them photos, videos, and scientific evidence they understood the phenomenon and allowed us to go ahead with the necessary steps [to handle it],” he told the Herald.

“It’s difficult explaining to someone that they’re experiencing what happens in one in a million because obviously they have never heard of it, ever seen it, and in fact, most people don’t know this happens,” he said.

He said described the phenomenon as “one of the strangest and most fascinating things you can see in maternal-fetal medicine.”

In 2017, a baby was born in Mumbai with his own half-formed twin brother inside his stomach.

The deceased twin—which was nearly 3 inches in length and had formed in the other baby’s abdomen—had a brain, arms, and legs, according to the India Times.

Dr. Neena Nichlani, who delivered the twins, said the mother and child are quite lucky.

“It can be implanted in skull, abdomen, or tail bone of the host,” Dr. Nichlani said.

]]>Christchurch Shooter Had Planned a 3rd Attack: Policehttps://www.theepochtimes.com/christchurch-shooter-had-planned-a-3rd-attack-police_2847238.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 13:51:11 +0000CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand—A father and son who fled the civil war in Syria for “the safest country in the world” were buried before hundreds of mourners Wednesday, March 20, the first funerals for victims of shootings at two mosques in New Zealand that horrified a nation known for being welcoming and diverse.

The funerals of Khalid Mustafa, 44, and Hamza Mustafa, 15, came five days after a white supremacist methodically gunned down 50 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch—a massacre that he broadcast live on Facebook. Police said Wednesday they believe he was on his way to a third attack when officers ran him off the road and arrested him. They declined to release any more details, citing the active investigation.

During the funerals, Hamza’s high school principal described the student as compassionate and hardworking, and said he was an excellent horse rider who aspired to be a veterinarian.

Those present included Hamza’s younger brother, 13-year-old Zaed, who was wounded in an arm and a leg during the attack. The boy tried to stand during the ceremony but had to sit back in his wheelchair, one mourner said.

Zaed Mustafa, in a wheelchair, brother of Hamza and son of Khalid Mustafa killed in the March 15 mosque shootings arrives for the burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

“We tried to not shake his hand, and not touch his hand or his foot, but he refused, he wanted to shake everybody’s hand, he wanted to show everyone that he appreciated them. And that’s amazing,” said Jamil El-Biza, who traveled from Australia to attend the funeral.

The Mustafas had moved to New Zealand last year after spending six years as refugees in Jordan. Mustafa’s wife, Salwa, told Radio New Zealand that when the family asked about New Zealand they were told: “it’s the safest country in the world, the most wonderful country you can go … you will start a very wonderful life there.”

She added, “But it wasn’t.”

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, right, hugs and consoles a student during a high school visit in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the family should have been safe.

“I cannot tell you how gutting it is to know that a family came here for safety and for refuge,” she said.

Four other burials were underway on Wednesday evening. Those victims include Junaid Ismail, Ashraf Ali and Lilik Abdul Hamid. The fourth victim’s name was suppressed by court order.

Families of those killed had been awaiting word on when they could bury their loved ones. Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police have now formally identified and released the remains of 21 of those killed.

Also on Wednesday, a man accused of sharing video footage of Friday’s massacre was jailed by a judge until his next court appearance in mid-April. And Bush said he believes police officers stopped the gunman on his way to a third attack.

Ardern has been arguing against giving the accused gunman notoriety followed his move to represent himself in court, raising concerns he would attempt to use the trial as a platform for airing his racist views.

Mourners carry the bodies of father and son Khaled and Hamza Mustafa, victims of the March 15 mosque shootings for burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

She revisited that concern during a visit Wednesday to the high school Hamza and another victim attended, where she asked students not to say the attacker’s name or dwell on him.

“Look after one another, but also let New Zealand be a place where there is no tolerance for racism,” she told students at Cashmere High School. “That’s something we can all do.”

Another Cashmere student, 14-year-old Sayyad Milne, also died in the attack.

Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian man, has been charged with murder and is next scheduled to appear in court on April 5. Police have said they are certain Tarrant was the only gunman but are still investigating whether he had support from others.

Ardern previously has said reforms of New Zealand’s gun laws would be announced next week and she said an inquiry would be convened to look into the intelligence and security services’ failures to detect the risk from the attacker or his plans.

New Zealand’s international spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, confirmed it had not received any relevant information or intelligence before the shootings.

Philip Arps, 44, appeared in a Christchurch court Wednesday on two charges of distributing the killer’s live stream video of the attack on the Al Noor mosque, the first mosque that was attacked, a violation of the country’s objectionable publications law. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Arps, heavily tattooed and dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants, hasn’t entered a plea. He remained expressionless during the hearing, his hands clasped behind his back.

Mourners react during a burial for a victim of the March 15 mosque shootings at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

Judge Stephen O’Driscoll denied him bail.

Charging documents accuse Arps of distributing the video on Saturday, one day after the massacre.

Most details of bail hearings are suppressed under New Zealand law. The judge made an additional suppression order regarding the police summary of facts in the case, limiting reporting of the accusations to the charges themselves.

Bush, the police commissioner, said they believe they know where the gunman was going for a third attack when officers rammed his car off the road but won’t say more because it’s an active investigation.

In a 74-page manifesto he released before the attack, Tarrant said he was going to attack two mosques in Christchurch and then one in the town of Ashburton if he made it that far.

Mourners carry the body of a victim in the March 15, mosque shootings for burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

Bush also revised his timeline, saying officers rammed the suspect’s car 21 minutes after the first emergency call, rather than 36 minutes. Bush said FBI agents have traveled to New Zealand to help with the investigation.

Abizar Valibhai, of Christchurch, said Wednesday’s burials marked an important moment.

“It’s not only for the Muslim community, but for the whole of New Zealand, and the world as well,” he said. “If we don’t show our support at this time, when are we going to show it?”

He said there would be many waves of emotions to come for the families of the victims.

“They are fathers, they are mothers, they are brothers, they are sisters, they are wives,” he said. “There are a lot of things that will be shattered.”

By Nick Perry, Juliet Williams, and Kristen Gelineau

]]>Cyclone Veronica Heads for Pilbara Coasthttps://www.theepochtimes.com/cyclone-veronica-heads-for-pilbara-coast_2846974.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 13:36:20 +0000Tropical Cyclone Veronica has intensified to a category three and is heading for Western Australia’s Pilbara coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology says the region could be severely impacted over the weekend.

Tropical Cyclone Trevor (Category 1) is located just offshore from Weipa over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Severe Tropical Cyclone Veronica (Category 4) is located northwest of Broome, Western Australia, on March 21, 2019. (Commonwealth of Australia, Bureau of Meteorology)

On the night of March 20th, Veronica was well north of the Pilbara coast but was moving southwest and is expected to intensify on Friday.

“There is still some uncertainty in the forecast track but there is the potential for a severe tropical cyclone impact along the Pilbara coast over the weekend,” a BOM alert said.

Tropical Cyclone Trevor (Category 1) is located just offshore from Weipa over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Severe Tropical Cyclone Veronica (Category 4) is located northwest of Broome, Western Australia, on March 21, 2019. (Commonwealth of Australia, Bureau of Meteorology)

Gales with gusts up to 100 kilometers per hour are expected between Pardoo and Mardie from as early as Friday night.

Very destructive winds with gusts over 165 kilometers per hour are possible as the cyclone nears the coast, as well as heavy rain, major flooding, and possible storm surges.

Tropical Cyclone Veronica undergoing extreme rapid intensification has intensified from Tropical Storm to Category 3 in no time at all. 125mph 948mb. Will strengthen additionally, likely becoming a Category 5 in 24-36 hours. Will impact Australia as a weaker system. pic.twitter.com/wYnzJ2T2pL

People near Mardie and Pardoo, including Port Hedland, South Hedland, Wickham, Roebourne, Point Samson, Karratha, and Dampier are being warned to prepare for cyclonic weather.

]]>Venezuela’s Guaidó Says Chief of Staff Kidnapped by Maduro’s Agentshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/chief-of-staff-to-venezuelas-guaido-kidnapped-by-maduros-agents_2847279.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 13:01:58 +0000Juan Guaidó, recognized by Washington and others as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president, said on March 21 that intelligence agents had kidnapped his chief of staff in a predawn raid, signaling that socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro is turning to extreme measures to maintain control of the nation’s government.

Venezuela’s National Assembly declared Maduro a usurper early this year and elevated Guaidó to lead the nation in the interim. President Donald Trump and more than 50 nations recognize Guaidó as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela, while a handful of current and former communist regimes back Maduro.

Maduro, whose policies have led to a massive economic collapse of the once oil-rich nation, has threatened to arrest Guaidó and called him a puppet of the United States.

Guaidó said the Caracas residences of Marrero and legislator Sergio Vergara had been raided before dawn.

“They have kidnapped [Robert Marrero], my chief of staff,” Guaidó wrote on Twitter. “We do not know their whereabouts. They should be freed immediately.”

Guaidó traveled around South America in February to drum up diplomatic support for his government, defying a travel ban imposed by the pro-Maduro Supreme Court. He later entered the country via Venezuela’s principal airport without being detained by immigration officials.

Dozens of countries, including the United States, major European powers, and most South American nations, have backed Guaidó and say Maduro’s rule is illegitimate.

Venezuela is reeling from annual inflation topping 2 million percent, which has fueled malnutrition and preventable disease and spurred an exodus of more than 3 million citizens since 2015.

Maduro said his government is the victim of an “economic war” led by his political adversaries and blames U.S. financial and oil sector sanctions for the country’s situation.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been actively involved in the pressure campaign against Maduro, condemned Marrero’s arrest.

“The United States condemns raids by Maduro’s security services and detention of Roberto Marrero, Chief of Staff to Interim President Juan Guaido,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter. “We call for his immediate release. We will hold accountable those involved.”

On March 20, Trump national security adviser John Bolton excoriated Maduro and called on Venezuelan leaders and the military to side with the people.

“The people of Venezuela have recognized the unequivocal failure of Nicolás Maduro and his cronies, and are standing up to say no more corruption, no more oppression, and no more poverty. The Venezuelan military must stand with the people of Venezuela,” Bolton wrote on Twitter.

“Maduro’s tactics are backfiring and he is losing the small pockets of remaining support,” Bolton added. “His systematic intimidation and violence are not working. The people of Venezuela are saying no more and leaders in Venezuela have a clear choice.”

Also on March 20, the United States sanctioned two Nicaraguan companies in connection with sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil giant PDVSA. Like Venezuela, Nicaragua is ruled by a socialist dictator, Daniel Ortega. On March 18, the State Department condemned recent human-rights violations in Nicaragua.

Trump has positioned Venezuela as the first domino in the downfall of socialism and communism in South America. Trump suggested that changes in Venezuela will reverberate to Nicaragua and Cuba.

Officers from the national police force broke windows at the back of the bus to reach the passengers and got all of them out without serious injuries before flames destroyed the vehicle, authorities said.

The driver was apprehended and treated for burns. Prosecutors described him as a 47-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese origin and said he told authorities he wanted to vindicate Europe-bound migrants who have died in the Mediterranean Sea but did not plan to hurt anyone.

However, prosecutors said the suspect, identified as Ousseynou Sy, made preparations that showed his actions were premeditated, such as buying a canister of gasoline and restraints on Tuesday.

He also sent a video to friends in Italy and Senegal indicating plans for a bold action and with the message, “Africa, Rise up,” they said.

Sy was being investigated on suspicion of kidnapping, intention to commit a massacre, arson and resisting law enforcement, with terrorism as an aggravating circumstance since the event caused panic. Prosecutors said they have found no evidence of Islamic radicalization or ties to extremists, saying it appeared the bus driver acted alone.

Relatives and parents arrive to a school in San Donato Milanese, where some children were taken after a bus driver abducted them in Milan, Italy on March 21, 2019. (Daniel Dal Zennaro/ANSA via AP)

Chief prosecutor Francesco Greco praised the Carabinieri for moving swiftly to block the bus and remove the children.

“They carried out an operation that we see in films with special agents,” Greco said.

“Thank goodness, because by then the intent to massacre had ignited, and the man was starting to set fire to the bus, as he did,” he said.

Video footage of the attack where the Senegalese man attempted to set a bus full of kidnapped children on fire. Video is not graphic but you can hear the screams. I’m surprised that such a brazen hijacking in Italy is not getting wall-to-wall coverage. pic.twitter.com/1DFaHYJdeJ

Milan’s provincial Carabinieri commander, Luca De Marchis, told broadcaster Sky TG24 that the bus was ferrying two middle-school classes between school and a nearby gym in Cremona province, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Milan.

The driver threatened the passengers, telling them “no one would survive today” as he commandeered the bus, De Marchis said.

Italian news agency ANSA quoted one of the students as saying the driver everyone’s phones and ordered the chaperones to bind the students’ hands with cable ties, threatening to spill gas and set the bus ablaze. ANSA said the chaperones only loosely bound several students’ hands with the zip ties, not everyone’s.

One of the middle school students described his terror in an interview with La Repubblica TV, his face obscured due to his age. His name was not given.

“We were all very afraid because the driver had emptied the gas canister onto the floor (of the bus.) He tied us up and took all the telephones so we could not call the police,” the student said.

Firefighters and police officers stand by the gutted remains of a bus in San Donato Milanese, near Milan, Italy, on March 21, 2019. (Daniele Bennati/ANSA via AP)

“One of the telephones, belonging to a classmate, fell to the ground, so I pulled off the handcuffs, hurting myself a bit, and went and picked it up. We called the Carabinieri and the police.”

Authorities said that an adult called an emergency operator, while one of the students called a parent, and they alerted authorities, who set up roadblocks. The bus was intercepted on the outskirts of Milan by three Carabinieri vehicles, which were able to force it into the guardrail, De Marchis said.

“While two officers kept the driver busy—he took a lighter and threatened to set fire to the vehicle with a gasoline canister on board—the others forced open the back door, breaking two windows,” De Marchis said. While the evacuation was still underway, the driver started the blaze.

De Marchis credited the officers’ “swiftness and courage,” for getting out all the children and their teachers “with no tragic consequences.”

Some of the passengers were treated at a hospital, mostly for cuts and scratches related to the evacuation, he said.

Prosecutors confirmed that Sy, who became an Italian citizen in 2004, had been convicted in 2007 and 2011 of drunken driving and sexual molestation of a minor. Sky TG24 said that the driver had worked for the bus company for 15 years without any employment-related issues.

“Investigators must clarify how the transport company permitted such a delinquent … to drive a bus, especially one carrying children,” said Riccardo De Corato, a Milan provincial official for security.

Video showed firefighters dousing the bus that had been completely gutted by flames, leaving only the charred metal frame.

By Colleen Barry

]]>NZ Semi-Automatic and Assault Rifle Buyback Will Cost Up to $200 Millionhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/nz-semi-automatic-and-assault-rifle-buyback-will-cost-up-to-200-million_2846916.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 08:20:37 +0000New Zealand could find itself out of pocket by hundreds of millions of dollars due to a new gun buyback scheme announced on March 21.

The New Zealand government will ban and buy back every military style semi-automatic gun and assault rifle (MSSA) across the country which the Ardern Labor government sees as necessary to avoid a repeat of the March 15 mass shooting in two of Christchurch’s mosques, killing 50 people.

Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern said there is no way of knowing exactly how much the buyback will cost the country beforehand.

“One of the failings in our system means we can have a range of weapons that are of this power and calibre and simply not know how many there are,”Ardern told reporters at a press conference.

However, the government predicts it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The estimate that has been made by officials is that the buyback could cost anywhere between $100 million (US$69 million) and $200 million (US$138 million),” Ardern said. “But that is the price that we must pay to ensure the safety of our communities.”

The prime minister announced immediate action to deter people from starting to stock-pile the soon to be prohibited weapons. Governor-General Patsy Reddy also signed an Order in Council, under section 74A(c) of the Arms Act, on March 21 to reclassify a wider range of semi-automatic weapons as military style firearms under the Act.

The measure legally classifies weapons to be banned under amendments to the Arms Act as weapons requiring an “E endorsement” on a firearms licence—for military-style semi-automatic (MSSA) rifles or shotguns. Spare parts used to convert the guns into MSSAs are also being banned, as well as all high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“The effect of this is that it will prevent the sale of MSSAs and assault rifles to people with A category gun licences,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said in a public statement. “We are introducing transitionary measures for gun owners to hand in their guns to police to hold until details of a buy-back are announced. Likewise, the Police continue to accept guns for destruction.”

Nash encouraged gun enthusiasts not to apply for the firearms and ammunition that will be banned in early April.

“Importers can buy these extended magazines. As the prime minister has alluded to, these are going to be illegal in three weeks time, so don’t waste your money,” he said at the press conference.

Ardern echoed this view and asked the general public not to waste police resources by submitting an application for weapons that will be banned shortly after.

“I can assure you that that would be a fairly pointless exercise … we will be banning these in three weeks’ time, so essentially there is no point in applying,” she said. “You can imagine that the police might have other priorities in that three week period other than processing such applications.”

There will be an amnesty for the weapons to be handed in during the buyback scheme.

The prime minister said she believed that most “legitimate gun owners” would “understand that these moves are in the national interest, and will take these changes in their stride.”

“When Australia undertook similar reforms [in 1996], their approach was to allow for exemptions for farmers upon application, including for pest control and animal welfare,” Ardern said in a statement. “We have taken similar action to identify the weapons legitimately required in those areas, and preclude them.”

The government plans to introduce a bill into parliament when it next sits in the first week of April. A select committee will quickly give feedback on technical aspects of the changes before the amendments to the existing laws will be made with “urgency.”

“Expect these amendments to the Arms Act to be passed within the next session of parliament,” Ardern said.

Nash revealed the bill will include some exemptions for legitimate business use such as professional pest control.

“Police and the Defence Force will also have exemptions. Issues like access for mainstream international sporting competitions are also being worked through,” he said. “We have also acknowledged that some guns serve legitimate purposes in our farming communities, and have therefore set out exemptions for 0.22 calibre rifles and shotguns commonly used for duck hunting.”

Anyone wishing to surrender a gun is asked to phone the local police station ahead of time.

There have been mixed reactions from pro-gun lobbyists to Ardern’s announcement.

“This usually led to poorly-written legislation, and never addressed the original problem of criminal activities with firearms going unpunished,” he told Newsroom. “All it affects is legal, law-abiding citizens, never criminals.”

Dunedin Clay Target Club President Grant Dodson said military-style semi-automatic rifles and tactical shotguns have limited use for target shooters and recreational hunters since they are designed for military combat use.

Registered New Zealand gun owners are estimated to have around 1.2 million guns, according to a 2017 Small Arms Survey—a figure representing about one gun for every four people.

Hunting & Fishing New Zealand has said it will be voluntarily removing all military-style assault weapons from their shelves.

“While we have sold them in the past to a small number of customers, last week’s events have forced a reconsideration that has led us to believe such weapons of war have no place in our business—or our country,” the company said in a Facebook post dated March 19.

“Irrespective of gun law changes now or in the future, Hunting & Fishing New Zealand stores will no longer stock military-style assault firearms of any classification or category—whether rimfire, shot shell and centrefire configuration.”

The prime minister defends the government’s tough gun control measures and tried to assure responsible gun owners that they were not being targeted by the government.

“To owners who have legitimate uses for their guns, I want to reiterate that the actions being announced today are not because of you, and are not directed at you,” Ardern said.

New Zealand’s gun laws have been in the spotlight since a gunman in Christchurch killed 50 people at two mosques.

Full details of gun bans and interim arrangements here. I feel this might be one of the most important things I have been a part of as a politician. Huge work over the last week. https://t.co/Rt2VUNONIS

Monster Cyclone to Slam Western Australia’s Pilbara Regionhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/monster-cyclone-to-slam-western-australias-pilbara-region_2847113.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 08:08:53 +0000Tropical Cyclone Veronica has intensified to a Category 4 storm and is heading for Western Australia’s Pilbara Coast with the potential to turn into a Category 5 cyclone before landfall, the Bureau of Meteorology said on March 21.

The bureau says the region could be severely impacted over the weekend.

Very destructive winds with gusts over 165 kilometres per hour are possible as the cyclone nears the coast, as well as heavy rain, major flooding, and possible storm surges. Excessive high tides are expected as the cyclone is expected to make landfall at the height of the spring tide.

People near Mardie and Pardoo, including Port Hedland, South Hedland, Wickham, Roebourne, Point Samson, Karratha, and Dampier are being warned to prepare for cyclonic weather.

Tropical Cyclone Trevor (Category 1) is located just offshore from Weipa over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Severe Tropical Cyclone Veronica (Category 4) is located northwest of Broome, Western Australia, March 21, 2019 (Commonwealth of Australia, Bureau of Meteorology)

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services has issued a blue alert of Karratha, Port Hedland, and the surrounding towns, and have urged people to prepare their emergency survival kits.

Supermarket shelves in the Port Hedland region have already been cleared out by residents preparing for the storm, including bottled water supplies.

The local Woolworths told The West that its next delivery of water is expected on Saturday morning at the latest.

“We’re pretty stocked on most things, but the water has gone AWOL,” a Woolworths spokesperson told The West.

BHP told The West that it had sent home all non-essential fly-in fly-out employees from Port Hedland and was clearing the port as it prepared to close on March 22.

“Safety is our top priority and we continue to monitor the movement of the cyclone,” a representative told The West. “As a precautionary measure, the ports of Cape Lambert and Dampier are being cleared. All other operations are continuing, subject to ongoing monitoring of weather conditions.”

The bureau’s State Manager James Ashley told The West that they have already seen wind gusts of around 250 kilometres per hour from Veronica.

“With the coastal crossing expected over the weekend and the cyclone remaining as a severe system the rainfall totals will be very high, we are talking hundreds of millimetres, and it is fairly slow moving so that makes rainfall even heavier,” he said.

“That will lead to flooding through those coastal areas in particular.

“As it approaches the coast, depending on the tidal movement, it can create very dangerous storm surges as well which again can lead to flooding of coastal areas.”

The last Category 5 system to hit the Pilbara Coast was Cyclone George in 2007, which killed three people and caused $8 million worth in damages in the Port Hedland region, The West reported.

Meanwhile, in the northeast, Cyclone Trevor has triggered mass evacuations as the currently Category 1 cyclone is forecast to gain momentum to become a Category 4 as it travels across the Gulf of Carpentaria headed for the east coast of the Northern Territory.

“It’s a very large tropical cyclone, with gale force winds extending 200-300 kilometres from its centre. It’s expected to intensify to Category 3 overnight, and Category 4 on Friday,” the bureau said on March 21.

The bureau is predicting that the cyclone will make landfall between Borroloola and Groote Eylandt on March 22 as a Category four severe tropical cyclone.

]]>UK’s May Asks a Wary EU to Delay Brexit Until June 30https://www.theepochtimes.com/uks-may-asks-a-wary-eu-to-delay-brexit-until-june-30_2846965.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 05:19:12 +0000LONDON—Exactly 1,000 days after Britain voted to leave the European Union, and nine days before it is scheduled to walk out the door, Prime Minister Theresa May hit the pause button on March 20, asking the bloc to postpone the U.K.’s departure until June 30.

EU leaders, who are exasperated by Britain’s Brexit melodrama, will only grant the extension if May can win the U.K. Parliament’s approval next week for her twice-rejected Brexit deal. Otherwise, the U.K. is facing a chaotic “no-deal” departure from the bloc within days, or a much longer delay that May says she will not allow while she is in power.

May, who has spent two and a half years trying to lead Britain out of the EU, said it was “a matter of great personal regret” that she had to seek a delay to Brexit.

In a televised statement from 10 Downing St., May said she shared the frustration felt by many Britons who have “had enough” of endless Brexit debates and infighting—though she did not accept a role in causing it. Instead, she blamed Parliament for the deadlock, and warned that if lawmakers did not back her deal it would cause “irreparable damage to public trust.”

“It is high time we made a decision,” May said.

In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, May acknowledged that the Brexit process “clearly will not be completed before 29 March, 2019”—the date fixed in law two years ago for Britain’s departure.

May asked to delay Britain’s withdrawal until June 30, and said she would set out her reasons to EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Her longshot plan is to hold a third vote in Parliament on her deal next week, then use the EU-granted extension to pass the legislation needed for an orderly departure from the EU.

“As prime minister I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than June 30,” May told the House of Commons—a hint she could quit if Britain is forced to accept a longer pause.

Tusk said he thought a short delay to Brexit “will be possible, but it would be conditional on a positive vote on the withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons.”

May’s request—and Tusk’s response—leaves Britain and the bloc facing Brexit uncertainty right up to the deadline for departure. Withdrawing without a deal could mean huge disruptions for businesses and U.K. residents, as well as those in the 27 remaining EU countries.

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May meets with European Union Council President Donald Tusk at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, on March 1, 2018. (Frank Augstein/Reuters)

“Even if the hope for a final success may seem frail, even illusory, and although Brexit fatigue is increasingly visible and justified, we cannot give up seeking until the very last moment a positive solution,” Tusk said in Brussels.

Tusk made clear what other EU leaders have long hinted: The EU is unwilling to give Britain more time unless the government can find a way out of the Brexit impasse.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that “if the (EU) Council is to decide on extending the deadline for Britain, then we would like to know: Why, why, why?”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a delay could only be granted if May guaranteed that its purpose “is to finalize the ratification of the deal already negotiated.”

EU leaders are united in saying that the divorce deal it spent more than a year and a half negotiating with Britain can’t be renegotiated.

But the deal has twice been rejected twice by hefty margins in Britain’s Parliament, amid opposition from pro-Brexit and pro-EU lawmakers.

May had planned to try again this week to get the agreement approved, until the speaker of the House of Commons ruled that she can’t ask Parliament to vote on the deal again unless it is substantially changed.

May told Tusk that despite the ruling “it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House.” She’s likely to do that next week —within days or hours of Britain’s scheduled departure—by arguing that circumstances have changed and the speaker’s bar on a third vote no longer applied.

But she faces a struggle to overturn the huge margins of defeat for her deal in previous votes in January and last week.

Tusk did not say whether the EU would be willing to grant a long delay to Brexit if Britain changed course and abandoned May’s deal for a new approach.

British opposition politicians, and pro-EU members of May’s Conservative government, have urged a longer extension, saying a delay of just a few months could leave the country once again facing a no-deal Brexit this summer.

They want to commit to a close post-Brexit economic relationship with the bloc to ease disruption for businesses and citizens.

Opposition Labour Party lawmaker Angela Eagle said May should “stop banging her head against the brick wall of her defeated deal” and seek cross-party support for a new Brexit strategy.

But a shift to “soft Brexit” would infuriate the pro-Brexit wing of May’s divided party, and a long delay would require Britain to participate in May 23-26 elections for the European Parliament.

May said postponing Brexit beyond June would result in Parliament spending “endless hours contemplating its navel on Brexit.”

Any delay that required Britain to take part in European parliamentary elections would be a major headache for the bloc. Britain’s seats already have been allocated to other countries to fill in the May election.

Britain believes it would not have to participate if it got a three-month delay, because the newly elected European parliament is not due to convene until July. Some EU officials take a different view and want any extension to end by May 23, the first day of the European elections.

Juncker said Britain’s Parliament needed to decide whether it would approve the only deal that is on the table.

“If that doesn’t happen, and if Great Britain does not leave at the end of March, then we are, I am sorry to say, in the hands of God,” he said. “And I think even God sometimes reaches a limit to his patience.”

By Jill Lawless and Lorne Cook

]]>SNC-Lavalin CEO Says Employees Will Move to Foreign Rivals If It Is Debarredhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/snc-lavalin-ceo-says-employees-will-move-to-foreign-rivals-if-it-is-debarred_2846948.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 04:49:24 +0000TORONTO—The chief executive of SNC−Lavalin Group Inc. says he never cited the protection of 9,000 Canadian jobs as a reason the company should be granted a remediation agreement to avoid a criminal trial on allegations it paid millions of dollars in bribes to obtain government business in Libya.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Neil Bruce said Wednesday if the engineering firm is convicted and barred from bidding on federal contracts here at home its workers would end up working for the Montreal−based company’s foreign rivals.

“There would be a reduction with us but these are talented folks. They’ll get a job,” Bruce said.

“This thing that somehow they’re going to be unemployed is not true because they are highly qualified, highly experienced people.”

“I don’t know what people make up”: SNC-Lavalin CEO Neil Bruce speaks out about scandal, says he never threatened to move HQ from Canada pic.twitter.com/5l4iINAV5E

Bruce’s comments come as a political storm in Ottawa continues over allegations that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his senior staff and others improperly pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson−Raybould to end a criminal prosecution of SNC−Lavalin.

Trudeau and his staff have said their only concern was for SNC−Lavalin’s 9,000 jobs, which might be at risk if the company were convicted and then barred from bidding on federal contracts for up to 10 years.

The affair has so far cost Trudeau two cabinet ministers, his principal secretary and the country’s top public servant, although he continues to insist no one did anything wrong.

Bruce said its Canadian workforce has decreased from 20,000 in 2012 and will likely fall further. That, despite it being the only Canadian company that does nuclear technology work helping Ontario facilities like Chalk River, Darlington and Pickering. Also, no other domestic firm does the scope of infrastructure services on projects in cities like Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

He said the company has calculated that about 75 per cent of its rivals have concluded deferred prosecution agreements (DPA) in their host countries and are free to work in Canada.

Meanwhile, Bruce said he still doesn’t know why the director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and former attorney general Jody Wilson−Raybould were not open to granting a remediation agreement.

Liberal MP and former Canadian justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould testifies before the House of Commons justice committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada on Feb. 27, 2019. (Reuters/Chris Wattie)

He said the company appealed that decision in Federal Court, hoping to learn some of the rationale.

“We did an appeal not because we thought we would win the appeal but because we thought we might get a reason and that got tossed out with no reason so we still don’t know.”

Bruce said he’s not holding much hope that an agreement will be offered under the current political climate, especially if the Conservatives win the fall election, and is preparing for a lengthy legal process.

“We have never asked for the charges to be dropped, we’ve never asked for anything to be circumvented,” he said. “We just want to move on for the sake principally of our employees first and foremost and our investors.”

A main stumbling block to getting a DPA could be public perception that former employees accused of crimes aren’t being held accountable, he said.

He said innocent SNC−Lavalin employees feel bruised and battered by the last six weeks since a report surfaced that government officials pressured the former attorney general to grant the company a deferred prosecution agreement.

“And I think fundamentally that’s unfair on our employees who had nothing to do with what went on seven to 20 years ago.”

While he’s not surprised that politicians would make hay out of this issue during an election year, Bruce said he’s concerned the company will continue to be a political punching bag as the campaign unfolds.

“If it sort of doesn’t move on from that or gets worse of course it’s a concern.”

Bruce also said few people have publicly defended the company’s important contribution to the country as a home−grown success story.

“So if anybody’s happy for us not being able to do that work and give it to the Americans or give it to the Europeans I think that’s a sad, sad position.”

He said there’s no plans to move the company’s headquarters from Montreal, adding competitors are envious of its shareholder base that is 82 per cent Canadian and led by the Caisse de depot which has helped fund its acquisition of British engineering firm Atkins.

“We see ourselves as Team Canada. We are a global champion, one of few. There’s not many and we’re proud to be Canadian.”

A man walks past the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., headquarters. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)
]]>New South Wales Priest Charged With 1993 Teen Assaultshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/new-south-wales-priest-charged-with-1993-teen-assaults_2846904.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 04:38:58 +0000A Catholic priest has been charged with indecently assaulting a teenage boy at a school in Sydney’s west more than 25 years ago.

New South Wales Police in 2018 began an investigation after receiving a report that a 15-year-old boy was indecently assaulted at a high school in Fairfield in 1993.

Officers arrested a 61-year-old man at a house in Berkley on March 19.

He was charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault and aggravated indecency of a victim under 16 under authority.

The priest was granted conditional bail and is due to appear in Port Kembla Local Court in mid-May.

He is currently suspended from the church.

]]>New Zealand Bans All Assault Weapons Immediately, Says PMhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/new-zealand-bans-all-assault-weapons-immediately-says-pm_2846846.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 02:52:42 +0000CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand—Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on March 21 an immediate ban on semi-automatic and automatic weapons like the ones used in the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch that killed 50 people.

The man charged in the attack had purchased his weapons legally using a standard firearms license and enhanced their capacity by using 30-round magazines “done easily through a simple online purchase,” she said.

“Every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned,” she said.

Ardern’s announcement comes less than a week after the killings, as more of the dead were being buried. At least six funerals took place on March 21.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to journalists during a press conference at the Justice Precinct in Christchurch on March 20, 2019. (Marty Melville/AFP/Getty Images)

Ardern said she expects the new laws to be in place by April 11 and a buy-back scheme will be established for banned weapons.

The buyback would cost up to NZ$200 million ($138 million), she said.

All military style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles would be banned, along with parts used to convert weapons into MSSAs and all high-capacity magazines.

Under existing New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. The live-streamed video of the gunman in one of the mosques showed a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine.

Firearms are displayed at Gun City gunshop in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 19, 2019. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Since the mass shooting on March 15, 37 firearms have been voluntarily surrendered out of an estimated 1.2 million civilian-registered guns—1 for every 4 people—in the usually peaceful country, BuzzFeed News reported. According to New Zealand’s Newsroom, it is estimated that 15,000 guns are semi-automatic weapons.

Over the years, New Zealand’s Police Association has been calling for a register of firearms for the country’s 250,000 registered firearms licence holders. But there has been consistent pushback from those who own firearms who say that their rights as responsible gun owners are being eroded by a criminal minority, according to Newsroom.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” the community has been saying.

New Zealand has relatively high levels of firearm ownership for recreational, sporting, and employment purposes, the left-leaning Labor party’s Police Minister Stuart Nash said during a briefing in 2017 when he identified firearms laws as a priority issue for the government.

Since the mass shooting on March 15, 37 firearms have been voluntarily surrendered out of an estimated 1.2 million civilian-registered guns—1 for every 4 people—in the usually peaceful country, BuzzFeed News reported. According to New Zealand’s Newsroom, it is estimated that 15,000 guns are semi-automatic weapons.

Over the years, New Zealand’s Police Association has been calling for a register of firearms for the country’s 250,000 registered firearms licence holders but there has been consistent pushback from those who own firearms who say that their rights as responsible gun owners are being eroded by a criminal minority, according to Newsroom.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” the community has been saying.

New Zealand has relatively high levels of firearm ownership for recreational, sporting, and employment purposes, the left-leaning Labor party’s Police Minister Stuart Nash said during a briefing in 2017 when he identified firearms laws as a priority issue for the country.

Christchurch Gun Shop Sold Rifles Online to Accused Shooter

The owner of Christchurch’s “Gun City” store said it sold four guns and ammunition to the alleged mosque shooter through a “police-verified online mail order process.”

David Tipple said in a statement that he has provided police with the purchase records and full details of the sales, which did not include military style semi-automatic weapons.

Tipple said he and staff are “dismayed and disgusted” by Friday’s shootings.

Referring to the man arrested after the shootings at two mosques, Tipple said, “We detected nothing extraordinary about this (gun) license holder.”

Flowers and signs laid at a memorial for victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks outside Masjid Al Noor in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 17, 2019. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Police: Gunman Acted Alone, May Have Had Support

New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the gunman who killed 50 people and wounded others at two Christchurch mosques acted alone but may have had support.

Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, was arrested moments after the shootings on Friday. He was charged with a single count of murder and a judge said March 16 that he may face other charges.

Bush said at a news conference on March 18, that “We believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this.”

But he added that the support of other people hasn’t been ruled out and is “a very, very important part of our investigation.”

Brenton Tarrant, charged for murder in relation to the mosque attacks, is lead into the dock for his appearance in the Christchurch District Court, New Zealand, on March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald/Pool via Reuters)

Funerals for Victims

An imam said he’s expecting thousands of people at an emotional Friday prayer service a week after the attack.

Six more funerals were being held on March 21 for the 50 people killed last Friday, March 16.

Mourners carry the body of a victim of the Friday March 15 mosque shootings for a burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Iman Gamal Fouda says he’s been discussing plans for the prayer service with city officials and lawmakers and expects it will take place in a park across from Al Noor mosque, where at least 42 were killed.

Fouda expects 3,000 to 4,000 people, including many from abroad. He said members of the Linwood mosque, where the gunman killed seven people, also would attend the joint prayer.

The first funerals for some of the 50 victims of last week’s shootings at two mosques in New Zealand have begun. Christchurch authorities spent four days constructing a special grave at a city cemetery that is designated for the Muslim burials.

He says mosque workers have been working to repair the destruction from the attack. They will bury the blood-soaked carpet.

Reuters and The Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.

]]>US Warning to Germany to Ban Huawei or Else Also a Caution to Canada, Expert Sayshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/us-warning-to-germany-to-ban-huawei-or-else-also-a-caution-to-canada-expert-says_2846184.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:49:04 +0000The United States’ recent warning to Germany and other countries that they can expect less intelligence sharing if they allow Huawei into their 5G network is also a caution directed at Canada, says a veteran intelligence expert.

“I think the cautions offered by the U.S. ambassador to Germany and others concerning Huawei and the 5G network are the most immediate of warnings to Canada about our country’s prospects vis-à-vis Canada-U.S. relations,” said David Harris, a lawyer and 30-year veteran of national security and intelligence affairs. He is currently the director of the International Intelligence Program of INSIGNIS Strategic Research.

According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell issued a letter to German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier on March 8 telling him that the United States wouldn’t be able to maintain information sharing at the current level if Germany allowed the inclusion of Huawei or other Chinese equipment providers in the development of the country’s 5G network.

Germany has announced that it won’t ban Huawei from the country’s upcoming 5G auction. Instead, it has increased security requirements that vendors need to meet.

Responding to a question on the warning to Germany, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News Radio that the presence of Huawei and equipment by other Chinese vendors in a country’s network could mean that the Beijing regime would have access to data that the Americans don’t want them to have.

“When you talk about this happening in countries like Poland or Germany or the U.K., we’re very concerned about that, not only for American security because we have information stored, too, but for the security of their own people,” said Pompeo.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a news conference at Lazienki Palace in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb.y 12, 2019. (Reuters/Kacper Pempel)

Pompeo also recently warned countries he visited on a European tour, including Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, against using technology from Huawei due to the company’s close links to the Chinese Communist Party.

Both Canada and the U.K. are part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that also includes the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The latter three have already banned Huawei from their 5G networks.

The U.K.’s BT Group, one of the largest telecom companies in the country, has rejected using Huawei in its 5G network. However, the agency in charge of Britain’s cyber security has said it could manage risks from Huawei.

Ottawa has said it is still reviewing whether to allow Huawei to provide equipment for Canada’s emerging 5G networks, the next generation in internet technology.

Harris said given the threat to Canada’s interests, Ottawa should have banned Huawei a long time ago.

“Which interest are being met, or which interests might be deemed met, by the kind of delay that we have been witnessing?” he said.

“Some, apparently reflecting the Chinese government’s interests, assure us that Huawei technology must in some form or other be opened to technical review. However, most experts are completely unconvinced by this kind of assurance, particularly given the history of Beijing’s manipulation of technology in foreign lands.”

Harris adds that it’s reasonable to assume that the United States has a “full-court press” under way behind the scenes, warning Canadian officials at all levels about the risks of Huawei.

“Because China is developing as the major strategic foe of the United States, Canada, and other Western nations, the gravity of the situation is overt and dramatic.”

A woman stands at the booth of Huawei featuring 5G technology at the PT Expo in Beijing, China, on Sept. 28, 2018. (Reuters/Stringer)

The Globe and Mail reported last year that according to a government source, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has directly told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the risks posed by Huawei. The Globe said Trudeau is reportedly alarmed about the national security threat the telecom giant poses.

U.S. senators from both the Democratic and Republican parties have also urged Trudeau to ban Huawei, with Democrat Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican Marco Rubio, a member of the committee, telling the prime minister in a letter that “there is ample evidence to suggest that no major Chinese company is independent of the Chinese government and Communist Party.”

The Epoch Times contacted Global Affairs Canada, Public Safety Canada, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service on whether Canada has received a similar letter as Germany has, warning about the impact on intelligence sharing if Huawei is not banned.

A spokesperson for the Communications Security Establishment, which is administered by the Department of National Defence, said in response that there’s no comment at this time. He added that Canada’s “security and intelligence agencies have a strong working relationship with our Five Eyes security and intelligence partners.”

]]>State of Emergency Declared as Cyclone Trevor Barrels Towards Northern Territoryhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/cyclone-trevor-could-hit-northern-territory-as-category-4_2846674.html
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:11:48 +0000A state of emergency has been declared by Northern Territory’s chief minister Michael Gunner as Cyclone Trevor barrels towards the east coast of the Northern Territory after leaving a trail of destruction behind in north Queensland.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner on Tropical Cyclone Trevor: 'It is really important that you stay informed and listen to all of the updates and take this seriously, not just the cyclonic event but the storm surge that comes with it.' MORE: https://bit.ly/2Tkqko3 #SkyLiveNow

The now category one storm is offshore over the eastern Gulf of Carpentaria where it is due to rapidly reintensify on March 21, into a category three storm as it slowly crosses the gulf.

But it’s then expected to further intensify and could emerge as dangerous category four cyclone when it crosses the Northern Territory coast on Saturday, the Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday, March 21.

“Very destructive winds, with gusts to 260 km/h, heavy rainfall and a very dangerous storm tide are expected near the cyclone centre as it approaches and crosses the coast,” the bureau added.

The bureau is predicting that the cyclone will make landfall later this week between Borroloola and Groote Eylandt as a category four severe tropical cyclone, with marine conditions in the Gulf of Carpentaria deteriorating from Thursday.

Residents in the east of the Northern Territory are being evacuated in what is the largest mass evacuation since cyclone Tracy in 1974. The entire community of Groote Eylandt with a population of about 2,800 people is being evacuated by air.

Other East Arnhem communities are being warned to prepare for destructive winds, heavy rainfall, and very dangerous storm tides as the tropical cyclone intensity could last for more than 24 hours before it weakens as it moves inland.

Katherine is being considered for evacuees as a reception, registration, and transit point with further accommodation arrangements being explored.

The system is likely to increase to a category four system by Friday with very destructive winds making landfall in the eastern Arnhem or Carpentaria district in the Northern Territory.

In Queensland, Trevor has uprooted trees, caused flooding and roof damage, closed schools and roads, and downed power lines with severe wind gusts and heavy rain since it made landfall in earlier this week.

Trevor lashed the Aurukun community overnight and some 180 places were without power on Thursday as residents began cleaning up.

Cyclone Trevor has intensified too a major Category 3 Hurricane, and it has made landfall in Queensland Australia. Although it does not mean that the storm has reached its peak intensity…yet. Dangerous wind, storm surge, and life-threatening flooding is ongoing for 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/JEEP10A6nG

Local Emergency Management Committees had met and started local plan activations affected communities.

Weather permitting, crews would fly in from Mareeba and Cairns to begin the restoration effort, Ergon Energy said.

The timing is uncertain with gales still expected across western parts of Cape York Peninsula on Thursday morning between Cape York and Pormpuraaw.

That will include Aurukun and Weipa as the cyclone moves offshore and re-intensifies with possible gusts in excess of 130 kilometres per hour.

A heavy rain and a storm tide is also likely between Mapoon and Aurukun on Thursday morning.

Crews restored power to the community of Coen on Wednesday night and have begun resupplying Lockhart River, where the electricity network damage was worse.

“We are down to 96 customers without power in Lockhart River from a peak of 150 customers, or the entire community,” Ergon says.

People have been warned to beware of flash flooding.

]]>A Common Refrain in US and Brazil: ‘We Don’t Want Socialism Anymore’https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-common-refrain-in-us-and-brazil-we-dont-want-socialism-anymore-2_2846566.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 23:25:39 +0000WASHINGTON—Brazil and the United States have formed a new relationship based on their presidents’ shared rejection of socialism.

Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro chose to make his first bilateral overseas trip to Washington, where he sealed a “promising alliance” between his country and the United States.

In a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Bolsonaro said socialist regimes had “nearly conquered power throughout Latin America in recent times.” But, by democratic means, he said Brazilians were able to rid themselves from socialists, referring to the country’s once-dominant Workers’ Party and former Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff.

Bolsonaro echoed President Donald Trump’s views on socialism, saying that Brazil and the United States stand side by side to protect “liberties,” and respect “traditional family lifestyles,” and “God, our Creator.” He added that they would stand against the “gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against ‘fake news.’”

Bolsonaro, who’s been described as the “Trump of the Tropics,” won the election last October by a wide margin and became president of Brazil on Jan. 1.

Before his election, he served 17 years in the army and nearly three decades in Brazil’s Congress. Known for his offensive remarks and tweets, Bolsonaro branded himself as a “clean” candidate amid a sea of corrupt politicians.

He has often expressed his admiration for the United States and Trump. During his visit, he said he was pleased to be in Washington, particularly after decades of “anti-U.S.” leaders in his country.

“The United States changed in 2017, and Brazil has just started to change now, in 2019,” he said. “We want to have a great America, yes, and we also want to have a great Brazil.”

‘A Miracle’

In an interview with The Epoch Times on March 16, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman in Brazil and the son of Brazil’s president, called the election of his father “a miracle.”

“It says a lot about the moment that we are living in,” he said, adding that there is growing support for like-minded counterparts.

Bolsonaro’s victory signaled a conservative turn for Latin America. His election came on the heels of the rise of conservative governments in Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Just six years ago, there was no conservative party in Brazil and it was hard for his father to find a party that would back his presidency, Eduardo Bolsonaro said.

“And now we are the biggest party of the Congress,” he said, calling it a “dream.”

“So it’s not a movement about the extreme right, as the press usually sees that we are. It’s something that is natural and is a huge message that ‘we don’t want socialism anymore.’”

‘Twilight Hour of Socialism’

Trump said the United States and Brazil were united in their opposition to the socialist dictators of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

Since taking office in 2017, Trump has lambasted socialism and communism on the world stage. During his speech in the Rose Garden, Trump blamed socialism for the economic collapse of Venezuela, once one of the region’s richest countries. He said he hoped that the “twilight hour of socialism” had arrived in the Americas.

“The last thing we want in the United States is socialism,” Trump said, in a reference to growing support for far-left socialist ideas among Democrats and his 2020 election challengers like the Green New Deal and Medicare for all.

According to the Heritage Foundation, socialism is considered as a political alternative taken seriously by millennials in the United States. And the Great Recession of 2008 accelerated the shift toward socialism.

“It tore a huge hole in the American people’s belief in capitalism as the way to a better life and sent them looking for alternatives,” Lee Edwards, historian of American conservatism at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a report.

Edwards noted that most young people, however, could not correctly define socialism in a survey despite their favorable view of socialism.

Replacing U.S. policies with highly socialist policies such as Venezuela’s would result in a 40 percent decline in real GDP in the long run and cost about $24,000 per year for the average person, according to a new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers published this week.

“Socialism is like a school. People like it,” Eduardo Bolsonaro said, adding, however, that it comes with a high price.

“It was during the term of Dilma Rousseff. And we faced 14 million unemployed. It was really hard. It was—I think—the worst economic crisis, ever in Brazil.”

Ernesto Araujo, Brazil’s minister of foreign affairs, praised Trump for opening new avenues for the conservative movement in the world.

According to him, the “enemy of the West is not Russia or China, nor is it an enemy state, but indeed primarily an enemy within, abandoning one’s own identity.”

Trump’s “movement here will win by bringing people’s perception back to where they should be,” he told The Epoch Times on March 19. He stressed the importance of reclaiming the soul of a nation and conservative values, which are essential for a strong liberal economy.

Taiwan’s laws regulating cross-strait relations prohibit Beijing’s propaganda—including state media and video platforms that broadcast state-run content—from establishing business operations on the island. But after a Chinese video content platform found a way to bypass the rules, others have been following suit.

Most recently, Tencent Video, China’s largest video streaming platform, will begin operating in Taiwan in May, the Taiwan branch of New York-based broadcaster NTD reported on March 16.

Taiwanese citizens are free to access Chinese media and video platforms regardless of whether the company has operations on the island. However, establishing a local Taiwan office would allow a company to more easily negotiate broadcasting rights, advertisements, promotional campaigns with local vendors, and other business.

Youku, a streaming service under Chinese tech giant Alibaba, will also enter Taiwan sometime in 2019, according to the company.

A Special Business Model

The business model Tencent Video and Youku will adopt in Taiwan was first created by iQiyi, a subsidiary of Baidu, the popular Chinese search engine.

iQiyi applied to set up a subsidiary in Taiwan in 2016. But on Nov. 28 that year, the Taiwan Investment Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEAIC) denied iQiyi’s business application.

Citing the Act Governing Cross-Strait Relations, the commission provided three reasons for denying iQiyi: it’s not simply an information provider, but also broadcasts the Chinese regime’s propaganda; owing to the reciprocity principle, since China doesn’t allow Taiwan content to be broadcast, Taiwan wouldn’t allow Chinese content; and Taiwan would uphold its ban of China video platforms from its market.

So iQiyi found a local agency, OTT Entertainment, that would run its operations in Taiwan. The server of iQiyi would remain in China, while OTT Entertainment would negotiate with local content suppliers and deal with advertisements-related affairs on behalf of iQiyi in Taiwan.

With this method, iQiyi established operations in Taiwan. Since then, locals have complained that the platform filters content that’s disliked by the Chinese regime. For example, in August 2017, iQiyi live-streamed a music concert held in Taiwan. As Taiwanese singer Cyndi Wang began her performance, the national flag of Taiwan in the background became visible; the video immediately cut to a commercial.

Signs of Taiwan’s sovereignty, such as the island’s national flag, are considered taboo. Beijing claims that Taiwan is a renegade province that will one day be united with the mainland.

Society’s Concerns

In September 2017, Tencent said in a Chinese media interview that the company counts more than 7,000 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members among its staff, which is about 23 percent of its total workforce. Sixty percent of the Party members on staff are key technicians.

“Party members are the main body who guide the company’s development,” according to the report by South magazine, a state-run operation.

Chinese firms are required to establish CCP organizations to ensure company policies toe the Party line. Tencent has 12 main CCP offices and 116 sub-CCP offices. The top Party member in Tencent is the current senior vice president. The company’s information security, internet-based media, and public relations divisions are also currently led by CCP members.

Tencent’s Taiwan partner has rented an office within Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan, and is preparing for its debut, according to NTD.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan’s main administrative agency for dealing with China-related affairs, said that it’s concerned about such partnerships, given the nature of Chinese companies.

Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister and spokesman for the MAC, noted at a press conference on March 14 that Chinese video streaming services must follow Beijing’s censorship rules. While they can now operate in Taiwan by partnering with local agencies, Chiu said he believed such partnerships should not be allowed.

Flora Chang, a professor at the Graduate Institute of Journalism at National Taiwan University, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that such video platforms’ entry into the Taiwan market are part of a greater campaign by Beijing to influence Taiwanese public opinion.

“The Chinese regime wants to achieve its political aim through such media. Such elaborately packaged Party culture will eventually corrode the free society in Taiwan,” Chang said in a March 18 interview.

Cheng Yun-Peng, a lawmaker and member of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said during a DPP press conference on March 14 that if China’s video streaming platforms continue to enter Taiwan’s market, the Chinese regime will be able to influence Taiwan’s culture, and affect children who consume such media.

GOTHENBURG—Swedish automaker Volvo hopes to reinforce its reputation for safety-first driving by installing cameras and sensors in its cars from the early 2020s, monitoring drivers for signs of being drunk or distracted and intervening to prevent accidents.

The safety features, detailed at a briefing in Gothenburg on March 20 which fleshed out plans outlined earlier this month, mark another step by Volvo toward its pledge to eliminate passenger fatalities by 2020.

Volvo, which in the 1950s was the first carmaker to introduce the three-point seatbelt, had said on March 4 it would introduce a 180 km per hour speed limit on all new vehicles.

Volvo said the cameras and sensors will be installed on all models built on its SPA2 platform for larger cars such as the XC90 SUV, on which its driverless cars will also be built, starting in the early part of the next decade.

Intervention if the driver is found to be drunk, tired or distracted by checking a mobile phone – among the biggest factors in accidents – could involve limiting the car’s speed, alerting the Volvo on Call assistance service, or slowing down and parking the car, it said.

Development of technology that would support such maneuvers has accelerated in the past year as the industry increasingly focuses on electric and autonomous cars.

Volvo Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson told journalists the technology developments meant carmakers had the responsibility to take on the role of Big Brother to ensure safety on roads.

While the strategy meant Volvo, owned by China’s Geely, might lose some customers keen on high speeds, it also opened opportunities to win parents who wanted to buy the safest car to carry their children, he said.

Volvo also said it would introduce Care Key, allowing a Volvo buyer to set a speed limit for themselves or before lending the car to younger or inexperienced drivers, as standard on all its cars from 2021.

Samuelsson said Volvo was talking to insurers to offer favorable terms to what it termed as “club max 180” customers who were using the safety features.

“If we can encourage and support better behavior with technology that helps drivers to stay out of trouble, that should logically also have a positive impact on insurance premiums,” Samuelsson said.

By Esha Vaish

]]>Montreal to Remove Crucifix from Council Chamber and Place it in Museumhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/montreal-to-remove-crucifix-from-council-chamber-and-place-it-in-museum_2846363.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:28:56 +0000MONTREAL—The City of Montreal announced Wednesday, March 20, it will take down the crucifix that has hung in its council chamber for more than 80 years and move it to a new home.

The issue of crucifixes in legislative chambers across Quebec, in particular, the one prominently displayed at the provincial legislature in Quebec City—has been central to the province’s debate over secularism.

Coun. Laurence Lavigne Lalonde told the city’s executive committee meeting that the crucifix, on display above the main door of the council chamber since 1937, will be removed ahead of three years of scheduled renovation work at city hall.

Town hall in the Old Port of Montreal, Canada, on July 2, 2018. (Eva Hambach/AFP/Getty Images)

Lavigne Lalonde said the crucifix was installed in a different era to remind councillors of the oath before God that they took and, it won’t be put back in the chamber when city hall reopens.

“I think we can agree the context has changed today,” Lavigne Lalonde said, noting society is now represented by democratic institutions that are secular, neutral and open.

While Montreal is moving forward, the provincial Coalition Avenir Quebec government remains opposed to removing the crucifix from the legislature, although the premier said his caucus would discuss the issue.

The crucifix was first installed above the Speaker’s chair in the national assembly in 1936, and successive provincial governments have rejected requests to remove the symbol. That includes the Coalition government, which said last October it is an important part of Quebec’s heritage.

The debate comes as the government moves to impose strict religious neutrality rules on state employees in positions of authority, including teachers, judges and police officers, who would be forbidden from wearing visible religious symbols. Legislation is expected in the coming weeks.

“The City of Montreal has the power to take down the crucifix,” Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette told reporters Wednesday in Quebec City.” The national assembly has always decided to maintain it, and that’s the position of the government, because it’s a patrimonial symbol.”

Questioned separately about Montreal’s move, Premier Francois Legault said the crucifix issue would be discussed at caucus.

“Everyone must make compromises. We’ll look at positions of different voices in caucus, and we’ll come back to you,” Legault told reporters. “It’s all part of secularism discussions.”

Lavigne Lalonde said Montreal’s crucifix is an important piece of Montreal’s heritage, and it will have a new home in a museum space in the renovated city hall where other significant historical items will be on display.

The National Assembly of Quebec is viewed in Quebec City on June 10, 2018. (Alice Chiche / AFP/Getty Images)

The debate over Montreal’s crucifix and the place of religion at city hall has been going on for more than 30 years, beginning when prayers were replaced with a moment of silence in 1987.

Lavigne Lalonde noted the crucifix was supposed to be removed during previous renovations in 1992. A public commission was also expected to discuss the matter in 2002 but never held any hearings.

Mayor Valerie Plante said it is important to distinguish between the city hall crucifix installed 82 years ago to guide municipal lawmakers in what is now considered a secular institution and the city’s most famous cross.

“For example, the cross on top of Mount Royal, we don’t have any intention of taking it down, because it’s not a democratic institution where we make decisions,” she said. “I think it’s important to make the distinction.”

By Sidhartha Banerjee

]]>Duped Women Go After Charming Alleged Con Man: ‘Everything He Said Was a Lie’https://www.theepochtimes.com/duped-women-go-after-charming-alleged-con-man-everything-he-said-was-a-lie_2846343.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:26:05 +0000It started with a chance encounter in a coffee shop. He was charming and attractive, and everything he said mirrored her life.

The relationship developed into a romance but the seduction ended months later in apparent deception, an elaborate scheme by an alleged serial con man to whom she lost thousands of dollars.

“Everything he said to me was a lie,” says Andrea Speranza, an athletic 49-year-old with long brown hair. “I couldn’t understand how he could make love to me with the sole purpose of ripping me off.

She has since found multiple alleged victims of Marcel Andre Vautour, a man with a criminal record, warrants for his arrest and several aliases.

His suspected victims say he targets busy career women between the ages of 45 and 50, leaving a trail of broken hearts and empty bank accounts across the country.

The Canadian Press has spoken with three women across the country who say they fell victim to his romantic schemes, and one man who was promised a job and ended up losing tens of thousands of dollars. Each alleged victim has positively identified photos of the same person.

Vautour did not respond to requests for comment by phone, email or social media. None of the new allegations against him have been proven in court.

Speranza says she’s sharing her story to prevent more people from falling victim to his alleged scams.

“I want to stop him from hurting more people,” Speranza says. “I’m going to catch a criminal.”

Originally from Ontario, Speranza had a hardscrabble childhood.

Despite her hard upbringing, she graduated from university and moved to Nova Scotia, where she became a firefighter and one of the first female captains in Halifax.

Speranza has dedicated her life to helping others, running an award-winning camp that educates girls about emergency services careers.

When she met a man who called himself March Hebert last summer, they seemed like kindred spirits.

He told her a story about his difficult family life, saying his parents struggled with addictions. But he turned his life around, worked on offshore oil rigs, and purchased hundreds of acres in rural Nova Scotia to build a youth-at-risk facility.

“It was almost like everything about my life he was saying back to me,” Speranza says.

She says she now realizes it wasn’t a chance encounter. He targeted her, she says, using a well-honed script and asking pointed questions to develop a plan.

It started off very casually—she wasn’t looking for a relationship. But she was attracted to his desire to help youth and to give back to the community.

The five-foot-eight, 185-pound man with green eyes and a disarming smile eventually persuaded her to hang out. They went hiking and kayaking, and attended charity events.

He told her she was beautiful. She made him a better person. She was the best thing that ever happened to him. He was falling hard and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

“Everything was just perfect,” she says. “He was super accommodating and helpful and complimentary. Nothing I could say or do was wrong.”

Speranza now believes he targeted her to invest in his apparently fabricated youth-at-risk facility. When she instead offered to help him apply for grants, she believes he implemented an exit strategy.

He said he suffered from Crohn’s disease and one day he called her to say he’d been hospitalized.

She recalls him saying he was OK, but his wallet had been stolen. He needed money to buy costly medication. Then he had to go to Toronto to get his dog from his ex, and borrowed money for a train ticket and hotel room. He promised to pay her back.

She gave him $5,000.

“He ghosted me after that,” Speranza says, adding that he never repaid her. “I pride myself on good decisions. But I had no inkling whatsoever.”

She filed a police report and encouraged another alleged victim she met, Jean-Baptiste Joachin, to do the same.

The French citizen had met Vautour at a hostel in Quebec City and had travelled with him to Halifax, where he was promised a job on an offshore rig.

Joachin allegedly paid Vautour thousands of dollars for training courses. He also opened up Canadian bank accounts and credit cards, which Vautour had access to.

Halifax police spokesman John MacLeod confirmed the force has received two complaints of fraud based on case file numbers provided to The Canadian Press by Speranza and Joachin. But he said one incident had been closed while the second was deemed a civil matter.

Meanwhile, Speranza has discovered more alleged victims in other provinces through social media. They exchanged photos of the fraudster to confirm his identity, and have shared information about their cases.

Together, they’ve pieced together a string of allegations against Vautour across the country.

The Canadian Press has contacted police forces, court houses, and justice departments in several provinces and has confirmed he’s a wanted man with a criminal past.

Documents obtained from Quebec’s Justice Department show Vautour pleaded guilty in 2005 to unauthorized use of credit card data and received a suspended sentence of one year’s probation.

In 2015, Quebec courts issued an arrest warrant for Vautour for fraud.

Victoria Law Courts confirmed a warrant for the arrest of Vautour was issued in 2001, and executed in 2009. He pleaded guilty in August 2009 to obtaining by false pretense and served a six-month conditional sentence in the community, followed by two and half years of probation.

Meanwhile, West Kelowna RCMP said they are aware of a recent incident and have a police file open on the matter. But spokesman Jesse O’Donaghey said specific details are not released until charges are laid by Crown counsel.

The Winnipeg Police Service confirmed Vautour is currently the subject of two arrest warrants. Const. Rob Carver said the charges pending from 1998 include possession of goods obtained by crime over $5,000 and personation.

Records from the Court of Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick indicate Vautour was charged in 1996 with stealing a Volkswagen Jetta in Dieppe.

Despite efforts by law enforcement, some alleged victims have launched their own investigations, even hiring a private investigator.

They’ve tracked down more than 20 phone numbers, 10 email addresses and multiple physical addresses used by Vautour in Canada and overseas.

The alleged victims have even narrowed down his method.

They say he told them all variations on a theme: He had a successful career either working on offshore rigs, as a remotely operated underwater vehicle operator, or running companies.

He claimed he made it big investing in precious metals, cryptocurrency and cannabis, the alleged victims say. He said he owned a white convertible Porsche, a Ford F-350 truck, a baby blue Aston Martin. He even had pictures to show off his upscale possessions.

“He had money and was well-travelled,” says Jodi McMullin, a woman from the Okanagan area of B.C. who met him on a dating site in January 2018.

The whirlwind romance moved quickly, and they began planning a future together.

He told her he had been working in Vietnam and wanted to stay with her in Canada. But he had tax issues, and needed help cashing a business cheque.

The businesswoman offered to help him out. When she had doubts, he was always ready with an explanation.

“Every time I questioned him on something, he had a response right away,” she says. “There was never any hesitation.”

She provided him with her bank account number, and he deposited a cheque and then pressured her to transfer him the money, she says.

McMullin acquiesced and then left for a wedding in the United States. When she returned, the cheque—which she later learned was a fake purchased online—bounced, she says.

“He ended up stealing just over $45,000 from me,” she says. “My trust is shot. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it.”

Speranza is determined to bring the man she knew as March to justice, launching www.stopthemarchmadness.com in the hopes of preventing romance fraud and encouraging more potential victims to come forward with anecdotes, stories and possible charges against Vautour.

“This man ruins people’s lives and I am in the business of saving people’s lives,” the firefighter says. “I have to stop him.”

By Brett Bundale

]]>Google Fined $1.7 Billion for Search Ad Blocks in Third EU Sanctionhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/google-fined-1-7-billion-for-search-ad-blocks-in-third-eu-sanction_2846154.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:01:18 +0000BRUSSELS—Alphabet Inc. unit Google was fined 1.49 billion euros ($1.7 billion) on March 20, its third large European Union antitrust penalty in two years marking the company’s decade-long regulatory battle in Europe.

The EU antitrust chief, however, gave a cautious welcome to Google’s measures to boost competition and give Android users a choice of browsers and search apps, suggesting the company’s regulatory woes may be coming to an end.

The European Commission, which said the fine amounted to 1.29 percent of Google’s turnover in 2018, said that the case focused on the company’s illegal practices in search advertising brokering from 2006 to 2016.

“Today’s decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told a news conference.

She said its actions meant advertisers and website owners had less choice and likely faced higher prices that would then be passed on to consumers.

The case concerned websites, such as of newspaper or travel sites, with a search function that produces search results and search adverts. Google’s AdSense for Search provided such search adverts.

The misconduct included stopping publishers from placing any search adverts from competitors on their search results pages, forcing them to reserve the most profitable space on these pages for Google’s adverts and a requirement to seek written approval from Google before making changes to how rival adverts were displayed.

Thriving Markets

The AdSense advertising case was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft Corp. in 2010. Both companies subsequently dropped complaints against each other in 2016.

Google said it was taking action to comply with EU orders in two previous cases, one of which concerned its Android mobile operating system that resulted in a record 4.34 billion euro fine last year while the shopping comparison case led to a 2.42 billion euro fine.

“We’ve always agreed that healthy, thriving markets are in everyone’s interest. We’ve already made a wide range of changes to our products to address the Commission’s concerns,” Kent Walker, senior vice-president of global affairs, said in a statement.

“Over the next few months, we’ll be making further updates to give more visibility to rivals in Europe,” he added.

Vestager welcomed the move, saying: “We see positive developments both in the shopping and Android case.”.

Google’s foe, the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace, said regulators should stay vigilant.

“Competitors have withered or died. It’s time for the EU and governments around the world to step in and address the underlying wrong,” its chairman Michael Weber said in a statement.

By Foo Yun Chee

]]>Hundreds of Hotel Guests Were Secretly Filmed and Live-Streamed Onlinehttps://www.theepochtimes.com/hundreds-of-hotel-guests-were-secretly-filmed-and-live-streamed-online_2846118.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:45:43 +0000About 1,600 people have been secretly filmed in hotel rooms in South Korea, with the footage live-streamed online for paying customers to watch, police said Wednesday, March 20.

Two men have been arrested and another pair investigated in connection with the scandal, which involved 42 rooms in 30 accommodations in 10 cities around the country. Police said there was no indication the businesses were complicit in the scheme.

In South Korea, small hotels of the type involved in this case are generally referred to as motels or inns.

The Orient Resort Hotel media accomodation to be used for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics located at Phoenix Park Resort in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea, on Nov. 10, 2016. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Cameras were hidden inside digital TV boxes, wall sockets and hairdryer holders and the footage was streamed online, the Cyber Investigation Department at the National Police Agency said in a statement.

The site had more than 4,000 members, 97 of whom paid a $44.95 monthly fee to access extra features, such as the ability to replay certain live streams. Between November 2018 and this month, police said, the service brought in upward of $6,000.

“There was a similar case in the past where illegal cameras were (secretly installed) and were consistently and secretly watched, but this is the first time the police caught where videos were broadcast live on the internet,” police said.

South Korea has a serious problem with spy cameras and illicit filming. In 2017, more than 6,400 cases of illegal filming were reported to police, compared to around 2,400 in 2012.

Last year, tens of thousands of women took to the streets of Seoul and other cities to protest against the practice and demand action, under the slogan “My Life is Not Your Porn.”

In response, Seoul launched a special squad of women inspectors who have been conducting regular inspections of the city’s 20,000 or so public toilets to search for spy cameras, though some critics have denounced the move as a superficial response to a societal issue.

Lee Ji-soo, a computer specialist who helps women scrub the web of images taken without their consent, told CNN last year her company had seen a surge in demand since the protests drew attention to the issue.

“The most common things that the clients are saying—and they are quite heartbreaking—are ‘I want to die’ or ‘I cannot leave my house.’ Especially the victims of spy cam or illegally taken videos say that when they encounter people on the street, they feel like they would be recognized,” she said.

In January, the co-owner of a South Korean revenge porn site was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $1.26 million. Soranet, which was shut down last year, was a popular site for uploading videos and photos taken using hidden and upskirt cameras.

Experts suspect an automated system, meant to stop stalling by dipping the nose, may be involved in both cases, with pilots struggling to override it as their jets plunged downwards.

But they stress neither investigation is complete and crew actions and training will also be closely scrutinized.

The March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash has shaken the global aviation industry and cast a shadow over the flagship Boeing model intended to be a standard for decades to come, given parallels with the Lion Air calamity off Jakarta in October.

The two crashes killed 346 people in all.

Chicago-headquartered Boeing has promised a swift update of automatic flight software, but regulators in Europe and Canada want to be sure themselves.

As Ethiopian investigators pored over black box data from their crash, sources with knowledge of the doomed Lion Air cockpit voice recorder revealed how pilots scoured a manual in a losing battle to figure out why they were hurtling down to sea.

Investigators examining the Indonesian crash want to know how a computer ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether pilots had enough training to respond appropriately to the emergency.

Communications showed that in the final moments, the captain tried in vain to find the right procedure in the handbook, while the first officer was unable to control the plane.

“It is like a test where there are 100 questions and when the time is up you have only answered 75,” said one of the sources with knowledge of the cockpit recording that has not been made public. “So you panic. It is a time-out condition.”

In the end, the sources told Reuters, the Indian-born captain, 31, was quiet, while the Indonesian officer, 41, said: “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”)—an Arabic phrase to express excitement, shock, praise or distress. The plane then hit water.

‘Credibility Damaged’

Boeing has said there was a documented procedure to handle the problem, which crew are supposed to memorize.

A different crew on the same plane the evening before had the same situation but solved it after running through three checklists, though they did not pass on all that information to the doomed crew, according to the preliminary report by investigators released in November.

Rowing back from previous reliance on U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) vetting, Canada and the European Union will now seek their own guarantees over the MAX planes, complicating Boeing’s hopes to get them flying worldwide again.

Regulators want to be absolutely sure of Boeing’s new automated control system, known as MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), and that pilots are fully prepared to handle it. It is meant to prevent a loss of lift which can cause an aerodynamic stall and send the plane downwards in an uncontrolled way.

“Our credibility as leaders in aviation is being damaged,” wrote Chesley Sullenberger, a U.S. pilot famed for landing a jet on the Hudson River, saving all 155 people aboard, a decade ago.

Facing such high-profile scrutiny, Boeing, one of the United States’ most prestigious exporters, reshuffled executives in its commercial airplanes unit to focus on the crash fallout.

Voice Recordings

The FAA said its “robust processes” and “full collaboration with the aviation community” were key to safety worldwide.

In Ethiopia, which is leading the investigation, experts were poring over the in-flight recording of Captain Yared Getachew and First Officer Ahmednur Mohammed.

As with the Indonesia flight, they radioed control problems shortly after take-off and sought to turn back, struggling to get their plane on track before it hit a field. However, experts emphasize every accident is a unique chain of human and technical factors.

Ethiopia’s civil aviation head Wosenyeleh Hunegnaw told Reuters the investigation was proceeding as quickly as possible within international standards. “I’m 100 percent sure the report will be issued within 30 days,” he said.

For now, more than 350 MAX aircraft are grounded around the world, and deliveries of nearly 5,000 more—worth more than $500 billion – are on hold.

Development of the 737 MAX, which offers savings of about 15 percent on fuel, began in 2011 after the successful launch by its main rival of the Airbus A320neo.

The 737 MAX entered service in 2017.

While some airlines are worried about the impact on profits, they have been able to keep services going, swapping MAX planes for others, or using partner carriers.

By Maggie Fick, Jason Neely & Tim Hepher

]]>‘No One Will Survive:’ Driver Hijacks Packed School Bus, Sets It on Fire in Apparent Protesthttps://www.theepochtimes.com/no-one-will-survive-driver-hijacks-packed-school-bus-sets-it-on-fire-in-apparent-protest_2846013.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:15:47 +0000A driver hijacked and set ablaze a school bus with 51 children aboard on the outskirts of Milan—Italy’s business capital—on March 20, Italian authorities said.

All 51 school children managed to escape the bus with the help of police before it was engulfed in flames. Twelve of the children were reportedly taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure due to bruises and shock, reported The Sun. None of the children suffered serious injuries.

Police identified Ousseynou Sy, 47, as the driver who allegedly shouted “No one will survive” as he rammed cars on a provincial highway and threatened to douse the children with gasoline and set them alight.

“He shouted, ‘Stop the deaths at sea, I’ll carry out a massacre,'” police spokesman Marco Palmieri quoted Sy as telling police after his arrest. At the time of the incident, Sy was driving the children from Vailati di Crema school to the gym, according to the news website.

One of the children managed to call the police, who rushed to the scene and broke windows to get all the children to safety. A teacher who was with the middle school children was quoted by Ansa news agency as saying that the driver had said he wanted to get to the runway at Milan’s Linate airport.

Sy apparently went on a rampage in an apparent protest against migrant drownings in the Mediterranean. One of the pupils said, “He wanted to kill us. He said he lost three daughters at sea,” according to The Sun.

An unnamed girl was also quoted as saying that Sy blamed deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio for the deaths of African migrants at sea.

Sy, who is an Italian citizen of Senegalese origin since 2004, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, intention to commit mass murder, arson, and resisting law enforcement. He was also treated for burns. The 47-year-old has a criminal record for drunken driving and for sexual abuse on a minor, reported La Repubblica.

The United Nations estimates that some 2,297 migrants drowned or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2018 as they tried to reach Europe.

A Libyan security official said on March 19 that at least 10 migrants died when their boat sank off the Libyan coast near the western town of Sabratha.

The Italian government has closed its ports to charity rescue ships that pick up migrants off the Libyan coast. Deputy Prime Minister Salvini said this has helped reduce deaths because far fewer people are now putting to sea.

Human rights groups said deaths might have increased with hardly any boats now searching for the would-be refugees.

Reuters contributed to this report.

]]>Mystery of Self-Tidying Shed Solved in Viral Videohttps://www.theepochtimes.com/man-who-questioned-sanity-over-self-tidying-shed-finds-furry-culprit-in-viral-video_2845869.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:51:31 +0000A 72-year-old man thought he might be going senile when metal objects kept tidying themselves into a container at night in his shed. His children suggested it might be a poltergeist.

About a month after his garden shed began to tidy itself, Steve McKears decided to settle the mystery and prove his sanity so he set up a camera.

The viral footage revealed one very determined, house-proud mouse.

McKears, who lives in the village of Severn Beach near the city of Bristol in the south of England was astonished.

“We were amazed at what he was doing, we just couldn’t believe it,” he told Sky News.

A mouse has been captured tidying up bits and bobs in a pensioner’s shed.

Stephen McKears from Gloucestershire says he couldn’t understand how small metal items were returning to their box every night.

The trail camera had been set up by a friend of his who is a wildlife photographer. According to McKears, the mouse spent two hours tidying away the objects in front of the camera.

In February McKears had first noticed a few plastic clips finding their way into the container, which he uses to store bird feed. But when he started leaving other objects out, they started to find their way there too.

The location of the village of Severn Beach in the south of England. (Screenshot/Google maps)

According to the BBC, as the weeks went by, he found more and more objects in the container, including some heavy bits of chain.

He said, “I thought ‘there’s something funny going on here,’ I’d never had a ghost in the shed before.

This pensioner was baffled as to who was tidying his garden shed at night. And was stunned to discover the culprit was a house proud MOUSE!!!!

“I was worried, I’m 72 and you hear of things going wrong with 72-year-old gentlemen in the mind,” he said. “That’s why when we proved it wasn’t me, I was happy.

He added, “I call it Brexit mouse because he is stockpiling for Brexit, but my friend calls him Metal Mickey.”

An aerial view of the village of Severn Beach in the south of England (Screenshot/Google maps)

The story of the mouse made the national news, and prompted thousands of comments on social media, with people unable to resist the puns about the “squeeky clean” OCD rodent and suggestions that it had been inspired by Marie Kondo’s hit TV series.

The shooter is seen taking aim in a video posted by the Twitter account @Protect_Wildlife on Monday, March 18, and then firing at the animal several times until a guide says “OK, OK, don’t do any more.” The man has been identified by The Daily Mail as 64-year-old Guy Gorney.

The clip is believed to have been recorded in Zimbabwe in 2011 but was posted online only recently.

“This ‘hunter’ sneaked up on a SLEEPING #Lion and killed it! How brave, how sporting – HOW [expletive]!!!,” read the tweet that included the video, sparking outrage.

Gorney, of Manhattan, Illinois, told CBS in a 2015 interview that he was puzzled why people reacted with outrage at the trophy hunting of exotic animals.

“I have a hard time understanding, if you have a picture of somebody with a deer, nobody seems to care. But if it’s an elephant, it’s a big problem. If it’s a lion—especially now—it’s a huge problem,” Gorney said at the time.

“But to me, either way, I’ve stopped a beating heart,” he added.

Gorney was cited in the CBS article as saying that he follows the law when he hunts and that trophy hunting is not poaching.

He also argued that hunting can be a form of conservation, saying, “You can say, why’d you shoot a lion? I love zebra, so shooting a lion probably saves 70 zebra a year, give or take. There’s all these kinds of balances in nature.”

He also lashed out at people who make threats against hunters for pursuing their hobby legally.

“I don’t see the logic of making a physical threat against somebody who’s proficient with firearms and wouldn’t hesitate to defend himself or his family,” said the trophy hunter.

“It’s like, are you insane?”

Controversial Video

In the video, which has been widely shared on social media, the lion is seen asleep in a clearing as the hunter alleged to be Gorney carefully points his rifle.

Off camera, the guide is heard coaching the man about where on the motionless animal’s body the shooter should take aim.

In a still from the video, the hunter is seen taking aim at the unsuspecting lion. (@Protect_Wildlife/Twitter)

The hunter fires one shot, and awakes the lion, which arches its back in pain and looks around in confusion.

The lion arches its back in pain and looks towards the line of fire. (@Protect_Wildlife/Twitter)

The shooter fires two more rounds before the person giving instructions in a southern African accent tells him to stop, saying, “OK, OK, don’t do any more.”

The guide then shakes the gunman’s hand and says “That, Mr. Gorney, is a very nice lion.”

“A very nice lion,” the guide continues, while laughing and patting the hunter on the back.

The guide congratulates the trophy hunter, identified by multiple media outlets as Guy Gorney of Illinois.(@Protect_Wildlife/Twitter)

The clip then cuts to the guide prodding the lion with the butt of the rifle to make sure it’s dead, saying, “Well done, sir, a very nice lion, beautiful. That is an exceptional lion.”

The guide prods the dead animal to ensure it is no longer alive. (@Protect_Wildlife/Twitter)

The Twitter account of Protect All Wildlife, which posted the video, cited the African Wildlife Foundation in saying lions are predicted to vanish from the African continent by 2050 if hunting continues at the same rate.

The account that shared the video is an animal rights advocacy account, based in the United Kingdom, according to the information on the page.

“I expose animal abuse and abusers wherever they are. I will NEVER stop fighting for better animal rights and welfare,” according to the biography.

Angry Comments

Some users responded with outrage to the footage, which was also shared by an account listed as belonging to “Danny Smith” under the username “@doglab.”

“This is not hunting, or sport…it’s murder #stoptrophyhunting #Fightforyourworld,” wrote user @verdiKate.

Gorney can be heard advocating for hunting in a video from an “open mic night” at the Book and Bean Cafe on May 3, 2018, where he talks about killing a lion that had harmed humans.

He also said he won praise for killing a buffalo that had injured a person.

“When I killed that buffalo that had hurt somebody, the people that had benefited from the death of that animal cheered. Clapped,” he said.

As for his motivation, Gorney said it’s the thrill of the chase.

“The ‘why’ is just the—I call it the adventure of it. Same reason Teddy Roosevelt did it.”

]]>Danish Telecom Operator TDC Selects Ericsson Over Huawei for 5G Networkhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/danish-telecoms-operator-tdc-selects-ericsson-over-huawei-for-5g-network_2845835.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:23:44 +0000Denmark’s biggest telecommunication provider has announced that it will not use Chinese tech giant Huawei to build its 5G network.

TDC Group, which is headquartered in Copenhagen, announced it has chosen Swedish firm Ericsson over Huawei for the construction of its 5G infrastructure, according to a March 19 article by Danish newspaper The Copenhagen Post.

TDC didn’t provide a reason for not choosing Huawei in its press release that announced the decision on March 18. The partnership with Ericsson will begin April 1 and will run until the end of 2024.

The mobile operator expects to officially roll out 5G services nationwide by the end of 2020. As part of the deal, Ericsson will also update TDC’s current 4G networks.

TDC’s current 4G network is managed in part by Huawei, which signed a six-year, $727 billion contract with the Danish firm in September 2013, according to online news site ScandAsia.

5G is the next generation of wireless mobile communications technology and is considered key to revolutionizing many industries, including transportation, health care, and manufacturing. For example, smart manufacturing, which relies on industrial robots to produce goods in automated factories, would require 5G connectivity, since the signal delay with 4G would result in too slow of a response time for the robots.

While speaking to Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), TDC Group President and CEO Allison Kirby said the decision to pick Ericsson over Huawei was based on purely business considerations. However, Kirby added that her company had been in continuous dialogue with Danish security services, since the firm runs critical infrastructure.

According to DR, Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen previously voiced security concerns about Huawei’s equipment because of the Chinese tech giant’s close ties with Beijing.

In response to TDC’s decision, Lisbeth Bech Poulsen, a member of the Danish Parliament, stated that she was pleased with the decision, as safety is the most important thing, according to another DR article. She added that Huawei, as a Chinese company, “is committed by [Chinese] law to cooperate with intelligence agencies in China.”

Beijing has a number of regulations in place, as well as broad powers, to demand that Chinese companies hand over customer data.

For example, the National Security Law passed in June 2017 requests that “any organization and citizen should support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence work, and keep secret any such work known to them.”

Carsten Nielsen, a tech analyst at DR, explained that TDC probably paid more to partner with Ericsson than if it had selected Huawei instead, according to another DR article.

Nielsen elaborated that Huawei has the support of Beijing, which subsidizes the company’s research and development, allowing the firm to provide 5G services at cheaper prices. However, the Danish analyst believed it was fair to pay a higher price for Denmark’s security.

Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information, in an editorial published March 20, said that it was a good decision to keep Chinese companies away from Denmark’s critical infrastructure because China is not an ally, and that many of China’s interests are fundamentally different from Denmark’s.

Other Danish telecom providers, specifically Telia, Telenor, and Three, will soon have to choose their 5G partners. According to Dagbladet Information, Telia and Telenor seemed to engage with Finnish telecom firm Nokia, while Three has carried out 5G tests with Huawei.

Three is owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Holdings, which is controlled by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-Shing. Three also provides its mobile services in Indonesia, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, among other countries.

Dagbladet Information asked pointedly whether Li and his son would be able to “see reason in staying away from a Chinese [5G] supplier.”

In December 2018, The Telegraph reported that Three was in close contact with the UK government after British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson voiced concerns about Huawei’s role in the country’s 5G network. In June 2018, Three inked a 2 billion pound ($2.6 billion) deal with Huawei to build its 5G network in the UK.

Security concerns involving Huawei in the UK was also raised in a February 2019 report written by think tank Royal United Services Institute.

“Allowing Huawei’s participation is at best naive, at worst irresponsible,” the report warned.

Salvini, who is interior minister and leader of the right-wing League party, has declared Italy’s ports closed to illegal migrants and asylum seekers since he formed a ruling coalition last year with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

In August, he blocked an Italian coastguard ship with 150 migrants aboard for almost a week off the coast of Sicily before finally letting it dock after Albania, Ireland, and Italy’s Catholic Church agreed to house them.

Magistrates subsequently put him under investigation and asked parliament to strip him of his immunity from prosecution, but on March 20, the upper house, the Senate, threw out the request and said he had been acting in the national interest.

“I hope no one in this chamber … has any difficulty in understanding the concept of nation and national sovereignty,” Salvini told lawmakers ahead of the vote.

“This is why Italians pay my salary: to defend our borders and to maintain the security of our country.”

With voting still under way, Senator Maurizio Gasparri, who heads the panel charged with considering Salvini’s case, said it was already clear that a large majority had voted in his favor.

The issue has sown division within the government and particularly within 5-Star, which has in the past criticized parliamentary maneuvering to halt judicial proceedings against lawmakers.

Luigi Di Maio, the 5-Star leader, held an online ballot last month among members, who voted 59-41 percent to protect Salvini.

However, two 5-Star senators said they would ignore that ballot and vote against their coalition ally. These are expected to be expelled from the movement, which would reduce the government’s already slim Senate majority.

An Italian-led push to disrupt smuggling networks and boost Libyan coastguard interceptions helped to reduce the number of migrants who successfully crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Italy by around 80 percent last year, to about 23,000, according to the International Organization for Migration. Some 1,300 died in the attempt.

In the latest of a series of stand-offs involving charity rescue ships, an Italian vessel carrying 49 African migrants was escorted into the port of Lampedusa by police on March 19, with Salvini calling for the crew to be arrested.

Prosecutors on March 20 ordered the ship to be seized and opened an investigation into the captain on suspicion of aiding and abetting human trafficking. A judicial source said a magistrate had ordered that the boat, the Mare Jonio, be seized.

The vessel picked up the migrants, including 12 minors, on March 18 after their rubber boat started to sink in the central Mediterranean, some 42 miles off the coast of Libya.

The humanitarian ship immediately set sail for the nearby Italian island of Lampedusa, defying Salvini. After initially being prevented from docking, the Mare Jonio was unexpectedly accompanied into port by police at nightfall as a storm approached.

The judicial source said the migrants would be allowed to disembark, while the boat would be impounded and the crew faced possible questioning.

]]>France Threatens to Reject Theresa May’s Brexit Delay Requesthttps://www.theepochtimes.com/france-threatens-to-reject-theresa-mays-brexit-delay-request_2846024.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:24:42 +0000LONDON—France threatened to reject British Prime Minister Theresa May’s request for a three-month delay to Brexit on March 20 unless she can guarantee to get her departure plans through parliament, potentially sending Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal.

May asked the European Union to allow Britain to extend Brexit to June 30 and EU leaders are expected to discuss the matter at a summit on March 21. The decision must be taken unanimously by all remaining 27 EU members.

Some EU states, including Germany, had given a largely positive response to May’s well-flagged request.

But with the clock ticking toward Britain’s formal departure date on March 29, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said May would need to make her case before EU leaders in Brussels.

“Our position is to send the British a clear and simple message: As Theresa May said repeatedly herself, there are only two options to get out of the EU: Ratify the Withdrawal Agreement or exit without a deal,” Le Drian told the French parliament.

“A situation in which Mrs. May will not be able to present to the European Council sufficient guarantees of the credibility of her strategy would lead to the extension request being dismissed and opting for a no-deal exit,” he said.

May’s initiative came just nine days before Britain is formally due to leave the European Union and marked the latest twist in more than two years of negotiations that have left British politics in chaos and the prime minister’s authority in tatters.

After the defeats in parliament opened up the possibility of Britain leaving the EU without a deal and a smooth transition, May said she remained committed to leaving “in an orderly manner” and wanted to postpone Brexit until June 30.

Her announcement prompted uproar in parliament, where the opposition Labour Party accused her of “blackmail, bullying, and bribery” in her attempts to push her deal through, and one prominent pro-Brexit supporter in her own Conservative Party said seeking a delay was “betraying the British people.”

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May answers questions in Parliament in London on March 20, 2019. (Reuters TV)

Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU by 52 to 48 percent, but the decision has split the country, opening up divisive debates over the future of the economy, the nation’s place in the world and the nature of Britishness itself.

A European Commission document seen by Reuters said the delay should either be several weeks shorter, to avoid a clash with European elections in May or extend at least until the end of the year, which would oblige Britain to take part in the elections.

European Council President Donald Tusk said that granting Britain a short postponement of Brexit was possible on condition that Britain’s parliament votes in favor of the stalled divorce agreement next week.

Should that happen, Tusk said no extraordinary EU leaders’ summit would be needed next week before the current Brexit date of March 29. Otherwise, he might call the 27 national leaders of EU countries staying on together after Brexit back to Brussels.

“In the light of the consultations that I have conducted over the past days, I believe that a short extension will be possible, but it will be conditional on a positive vote on the withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons,” Tusk told journalists before chairing the EU leaders’ talks in Brussels on March 21 and 22.

Tusk said there remained the question of how long such a delay should last.

“Prime Minister May’s proposal of the 30th of June, which has its merits, creates a series of questions of a legal and political nature,” he said.

Tusk said that an extension could be granted in writing if EU leaders approved his proposal and Britain’s parliament voted in favor of the withdrawal agreement.

By Elizabeth Piper, Kylie MacLellan, and William James

]]>Second Federal Jury Says Roundup Contributes to Causing Cancerhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/second-federal-jury-says-roundup-contributes-to-causing-cancer_2845688.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:24:22 +0000A U.S. jury ruled March 19 that agrochemical company Monsanto’s weed killer product, Roundup, was a contributing factor in causing cancer. It is the second such ruling.

Shares in Bayer, the German parent company of Monsanto, fell more than 12 percent on March 20 after the latest jury decision made in the San Francisco federal court. The unanimous decision was not a finding of Bayer’s liability for the cancer of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman.

Bayer denies all allegations that Roundup and its main active chemical, glyphosate—the world’s most widely used weed killer—cause cancer. The company said it was disappointed with the jury’s initial decision. Bayer acquired Monsanto, the creator of Roundup, for $63 billion in June 2018.

“We continue to believe firmly that the science confirms that glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer,” the company said in a statement. “We are confident the evidence in phase two will show that Monsanto’s conduct has been appropriate and that the company should not be liable for Mr. Hardeman’s cancer.”

The case is the second time in eight months that a jury has reached such a verdict. The drop in Bayer shares was the biggest intraday loss in 16 years, wiping some 8 billion euros ($9.1 billion) off its valuation.

“This looks like 2–0 plaintiffs, and clearly not helpful for the overall payout calculus and resolution of the litigation,” said Gunther Zechmann, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Monsanto’s Roundup, the first glyphosate-based weed killer, is no longer patent-protected and many other versions are now available. Bayer doesn’t provide sales figures for the product.

The latest case was the second of some 11,200 Roundup lawsuits to go to trial in the United States. Another California man, school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, was awarded $289 million in August after a state court jury found Roundup caused his cancer. That award was later reduced to $78 million and is on appeal.

The company claimed that any decision made in the current trial will not affect future cases.

Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, Calif., on Aug. 10, 2018. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

“Regardless of the outcome, however, the decision in phase one of this trial has no impact on future cases and trials because each one has its own factual and legal circumstances,” the company said. “We have great sympathy for Mr. Hardeman and his family, but an extensive body of science supports the conclusion that Roundup was not the cause of his cancer.”

In November 2018, Bayer announced that they were selling a number of businesses and cutting around 12,000 jobs and 3.3 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in impairments due to the avalanche of lawsuits.

Some of America’s most popular beers and wines contain glyphosate, according to a new report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG).

Monsanto Vice President Scott Partridge speaks during a press conference after Monsanto was ordered to pay $289 million in damages. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

In a report titled “Glyphosate pesticide in beer and wine,” U.S. PIRG tested 20 samples of beer, wine, and hard cider, including several organic brands. The report found that all but one contained glyphosate.

The report also found it particularly concerning that glyphosate was discovered in 3 out of 4 organic alcoholic beverages tested, despite the fact that weed killer products like Roundup have long been prohibited in the making of organic beer and wine.

“(It) is now under pressure to deliver and trying to avoid becoming a target for activist or strategic buyers.”

Under Pressure

Bayer had claimed that the jury was overly influenced by plaintiffs’ lawyer’s allegations of corporate misconduct and did not focus on the science.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called such evidence “a distraction” from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer. He split the Hardeman case into two phases: one to decide causation, the other to determine Bayer’s potential liability and damages.

Under Chhabria’s order, the second phase would only take place if the jury found Roundup to be a substantial factor in causing Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The jury found that it was on March 19.

Union Investment fund manager Markus Manns cautioned that it was too early to read anything into individual rulings in courts of first instance.

“What will be important for Bayer is the outcome of the appeals hearings,” he told Reuters, adding that Bayer should not yet engage in settlement talks.

Chhabria has scheduled another bellwether trial for May and a third trial is likely to take place this year. All three cases will be split into causation and liability phases.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and other regulators have found that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic to humans. But the World Health Organization’s cancer arm in 2015 reached a different conclusion, classifying glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

]]>Brussels Pushes EU Leaders to Get Tough on Trade With Chinahttps://www.theepochtimes.com/brussels-pushes-eu-leaders-to-get-tough-on-trade-with-china_2845826.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 15:35:22 +0000BRUSSELS—The European Union executive is urging EU leaders this week to get tough on trade with Beijing and use their 2.4 trillion euro ($2.7 trillion) market in public tenders as leverage to pressure countries such as China to open up.

The bloc has sought to avoid taking sides in a multi-billion dollar trade war between Washington and Beijing, but has become increasingly frustrated by subsidies and state involvement in the Chinese economy, and what it sees as the slow pace of change.

European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen told Reuters that the time was gone when China, the EU’s second largest goods trading partner, could argue that it needed to protect its developing economy.

“The old narrative is absolutely obsolete,” he said in an interview.

EU leaders will debate relations with China over dinner at a summit on March 21.

The Commission now wants to revive a proposal that could lead to the bloc limiting foreign firms’ access to public tenders if there is discrimination against EU firms in their home procurement market.

In such cases, a penalty surcharge of up to 20 percent would be applied to the foreign bids.

The Commission proposed its International Procurement Instrument (IPI) in 2012 and 2016, largely at the instigation of France, but faced resistance from several EU countries.

However, it believes there is more willingness now to be firm with China, notably after EU members late last year backed a system of screening foreign investments for threats to strategic technologies and infrastructure.

“Once they saw concrete acquisitions, everybody started to back the (screening) proposal,” Katainen said. “The same thing will happen with IPI as it’s a way to improve reciprocity.”

Neither the screening law nor the public procurement proposal mention China by name, but the Commission mentioned both in its 10-point action plan on EU-China relations, published last week.

A German EU diplomat welcomed the paper as a whole, calling it “comprehensive and courageous.” However, the northern EU members that are most enthusiastic about free trade fear that the measure smacks of protectionism and could harm taxpayers by shutting out cheaper Chinese providers, for instance.

The Commission says Europe needs to take a coordinated approach and that EU companies face the most discrimination in public procurement worldwide, citing Global Trade Alert data.

Of the 10 countries most discriminated against, five are European, with Germany at the top. However, China comes second, and more than 40 percent of the restrictive measures are applied in or by the United States.

Commission officials said the proposal had in mind restrictions in India, Indonesia, Russia, and Turkey, but they would not be drawn on the U.S. Buy American Act.

By Philip Blenkinsop

]]>Germany to Create Fund to Foil Foreign Takeovers and Curb Chinese Companieshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/germany-to-create-fund-to-foil-foreign-takeovers-and-curb-chinese-companies_2845760.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 15:20:10 +0000BERLIN—Germany plans to pass legislation by the end of 2019 to create a state-owned fund that can protect key companies from takeovers by Chinese and other foreign firms, government sources said, in a marked shift from its “hands-off” approach to business.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier proposed the fund in February as part of a more defensive industrial strategy, and three officials told Reuters the government was now working on draft laws so the fund could be up and running next year.

Two senior government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the idea was for the state-owned investment fund to work with the private sector when buying company stakes to foil unwelcome takeovers.

One official said the state could buy a stake initially and then sell it on as soon as possible to private investors, while the other official said in some cases the fund could work with private investors from the start.

“In the past, Germany was too reluctant to define its national interests. This is changing now,” the first government official said.

“We see that we cannot lean back anymore and let everything be decided by the free play of market forces,” he said. “And this means more protection from the state.”

Long an ardent advocate of free markets, Germany’s move is a response to China’s state-driven metamorphosis from customer to competitor and U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of unilateral trade sanctions and higher tariffs, the sources said.

For decades, German politicians followed the “ordoliberal” principles of post-war economy minister Ludwig Erhard who said free markets should decide winners and losers, with the state only providing a framework for fair competition.

The German move also comes at a time the European Union as a whole is reconsidering the bloc’s industrial strategy and relations to China in the face of increased investment in critical sectors by Chinese state-owned enterprises.

The European Commission has urged the bloc to back its ideas to curb Chinese companies, and EU leaders are due to discuss the issue at a summit in Brussels this week.

An employee of 50Hertz Transmission Company overviews an information board on voltage network in Neuenhagen, Germany on March 6, 2014. (Tobias Schwarz/Reuters)

Wake-Up Call

In Germany, the Chinese takeover of robotics maker Kuka in 2016 was the wake-up call for the government that underlined the urgency for the state to become more active, the officials said.

An attempt by China’s State Grid last year to buy a stake in power grid operator 50Hertz also focused German minds. After Berlin failed to find an alternative private investor in Europe, German state-owned bank KfW stepped in to keep the Chinese out.

That’s why the German government is now aiming to pass new laws creating the investment fund by the end of the year so it can be ready for use in 2020, the first official told Reuters.

“Ideally, there will be stake acquisitions together with private investors,” the official said, adding that Berlin had no plans to intervene in daily business decisions. “It’s not about the state becoming entrepreneurial.”

The state-owned fund could be managed by KfW, or be an altogether new entity empowered to hold company shareholdings, the second official said.

The plan goes hand in hand with a decision by the government in December to lower the threshold for screening, and even blocking, purchases of stakes in German firms in strategic areas by non-European investors.

An economy ministry spokesman said investment by the state fund would be limited to “very exceptional cases” and stakes would only be bought for a restricted period.

Such cases would mainly involve the protection of critical infrastructure where the government viewed a non-European investor as a threat to Germany’s national interests, the ministry spokesman said.

“The idea and its possible implementation are being discussed now in the further process of the industrial strategy,” said the spokesman, who declined to comment on the fund’s expected size.

‘Economic Sovereignty’

Altmaier said in February after presenting Germany’s industrial strategy for the next decade that key sectors were steel and aluminum, chemicals, machine and plant engineering, optics, autos, medical equipment, Green technologies, defense, aerospace and 3D printing.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier presents the national industry strategy for 2030 during a news conference in Berlin on Feb. 5, 2019. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

Among the companies whose survival Altmaier described as crucial for the economy as a whole were marquee names such as Deutsche Bank, thyssenkrupp, Siemens and Germany’s big carmakers.

Altmaier told Reuters in an interview that his aim was to safeguard global competitiveness and technological leadership of German industry for the coming decades.

“This should also be a top priority for the next European Commission,” he said. “With this, we will secure jobs and prosperity in Germany and Europe. And, above all, it’s what will give Europe its economic sovereignty and independence.”

Germany and France, the two biggest economies in the euro zone, are liaising closely on how the EU could overhaul its competition and state subsidy rules to support European champions that can compete on a global level.

Following a decision by Brussels to block a rail deal between Siemens and Alstom—a merger that was meant to counter Chinese competition—German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to put reform of Europe’s competition laws high on the agenda during Germany’s EU presidency in 2020.

Business Backlash

While Germany’s powerful BDI industry association has welcomed the government’s plan to tackle a more assertive China, support national champions and reform competition law, it has criticized the idea of a state investment fund.

“New instruments for state ownership should not be used to fend off company takeovers, they should only support projects of new technologies,” BDI director general Joachim Lang said.

In light of growing unease among coalition lawmakers and industry groups, Altmaier is trying to reassure critics that Germany will remain open for foreign direct investment and that the government wants to intervene as little as possible.

“However, there can be exceptional cases in which the state must take action to avoid severe disadvantages for the economy as a whole and the country’s national welfare,” Altmaier told Reuters. “For example in cases when our critical infrastructure is at stake or when it comes to game changer technologies.”

Carsten Linnemann, deputy leader of Merkel’s conservatives in parliament and head of the bloc’s business-friendly Mittelstand wing, said the government’s focus on national champions was problematic. “We shouldn’t confuse size with competitiveness,” Linnemann told Reuters.

He said Germany’s “hidden champions”—mostly family-run firms that are market leaders in niche segments—were a good example that innovation is often driven by small enterprises.

Linnemann also rejected the idea of state intervention.

“The state simply doesn’t have more knowledge than the market. This basic rule hasn’t changed in times of big technological disruptions, in fact rather the opposite.”

Asked if parliament would block legislation for a state investment fund, Linnemann said coalition lawmakers were still in the process of forming an opinion. He said they generally shared the government’s goal to support the industrial sector.

“But we won’t achieve this by copying the industrial policy of China, the United States and France.”

($1 = 0.8829 euros)

By Michael Nienaber

]]>ISIS Calls for Fanatics to Take ‘Revenge’ for New Zealand Mosque Shootingshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/isis-calls-for-fanatics-to-take-revenge-for-new-zealand-mosque-shootings_2845522.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 11:26:57 +0000Leaders of the ISIS terror group have called for retaliation for the attack on two mosques in New Zealand, leaving 50 dead.

Dozens of people were killed when a terrorist went on a rampage through two mosques in the city of Christchurch on March 15.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, is accused of the shooting and has been charged with murder.

Police have said they are certain Tarrant was the only gunman but are still investigating whether he had support from others.

Brenton Tarrant, charged for murder in relation to the mosque attacks, is in Christchurch District Court, New Zealand, on March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald/Pool via Reuters)

“The scenes of the massacres in the two mosques should wake up those who were fooled, and should incite the supporters of the caliphate to avenge their religion,” al-Muhajir said.

The leader of the terror group compared the Christchurch killings to the battle raging over the village of Baghouz—the extremists’ last stronghold in Syria.

“Here is Baghouz in Syria, where Muslims are burned to death and are bombed by all known and unknown weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

The true identity of the ISIS spokesman is not known—Abu Hassan al-Muhajir is an alias. He is not known to have appeared in any photographs or ISIS propaganda videos. He communicates rarely. His last message—a four-minute long audio recording—was in September 2018.

The attacks in Christchurch left 50 dead and 50 more injured. Nine of the wounded are in critical condition.

After days of intense grieving, preparations were underway to begin burying the victims.

New Zealand Holds First Funerals

After days of preparations, the first funerals took place March 20 for victims of the shootings.

A father and son who fled the civil war in Syria for “the safest country in the world” were buried before hundreds of mourners.

Mourners carry the body of a victim of the Friday, March 15, mosque shootings for burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

The bodies of Khalid Mustafa, 44, and Hamza Mustafa, 15, were laid to rest five days after the massacre.

Those present included Hamza’s younger brother, 13-year-old Zaed, who was wounded in an arm and a leg during the attack. The boy tried to stand during the ceremony but had to sit back in his wheelchair, one mourner said.

“We tried to not shake his hand, and not touch his hand or his foot, but he refused, he wanted to shake everybody’s hand, he wanted to show everyone that he appreciated them. And that’s amazing,” said Jamil El-Biza, who traveled from Australia to attend the funeral.

Zaed Mustafa, in a wheelchair, brother of Hamza and son of Khalid Mustafa killed in the March 15 mosque shootings reacts during the burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

The Mustafas had moved to New Zealand last year, after spending six years as refugees in Jordan. Mustafa’s wife, Salwa, told Radio New Zealand that when the family asked about New Zealand they were told, “it’s the safest country in the world, the most wonderful country you can go … you will start a very wonderful life there.”

What Happened?

A gunman broadcast live footage on Facebook of the attack on one of the mosques, showing him driving to the scene, entering the building and shooting people at random.

Witnesses described the shooter as dressed in a bulletproof vest and a helmet as he opened fire at the Masjid Al Noor mosque at 1:40 p.m. local time, where there could have been as many as 300 people praying.

“He had a big gun … he came and started shooting everyone in the mosque, everywhere,” said witness Ahmad Al-Mahmoud, according to Reuters. He said he and others escaped by breaking through a glass door.

An injured person is loaded into an ambulance following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 15, 2019. (Martin Hunter/Reuters/SNPA)

Video footage—not corroborated independently for authenticity—shows worshippers, possibly dead or wounded, laying huddled on the floor. After spending more than two minutes inside the mosque spraying people with bullets, the gunman then walks outside to the street, where he shoots at people on the sidewalk.

Children’s screams can be heard in the distance as he returns to his car to get another rifle.

The gunman then walks back into the mosque, where there are at least two dozen people lying on the ground. After walking back outside and shooting a woman there, he gets back in his car and drives away. The video then cuts out.

Armed police following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019. (Reuters/SNPA/Martin Hunter)

Witness Len Peneha told The Associated Press he saw the gunman enter the mosque and then heard dozens of shots, followed by people running from the mosque in terror.

Peneha, who lives next door to the mosque, said after the gunman drove away, he went into the mosque to try and help.

“I saw dead people everywhere. There were three in the hallway, at the door leading into the mosque, and people inside the mosque,” he said. “It’s unbelievably nutty. I don’t understand how anyone could do this to these people, to anyone. It’s ridiculous.”

Hospitals said children were among the victims.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

]]>Notorious Mongrel Mob Gang Vows to Guard Mosque in New Zealandhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/notorious-mongrel-mob-gang-vows-to-guard-mosque-in-new-zealand_2845509.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 11:04:14 +0000A notorious biker gang has vowed to stand guard outside a New Zealand mosque during first Friday prayers since the attack in Christchurch that left 50 dead.

Hearing that Muslims in the city of Hamilton were frightened to go to Friday prayers—their main weekly gathering—the regional leader of the Mongrel Mob said they would secure the perimeter of the building.

The Mongrel Mob is a Maori-dominated gang that was spawned in the 1960s. Like other ethnic minority gangs, it follows the same structure as Hell’s Angels: a president, vice president, sergeant-at-arms, patched members, prospects (unpatched recruits), and associates.

Waikato Mongrel Mob President Sonny Fatu told Stuff NZ that they would guard Jamia Masjid Mosque in Hamilton, a city on the North Island.

“We will support and assist our Muslim brothers and sisters for however long they need us,” Fatu said.

Ambulance attendants take a man from outside a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

“We were contacted by a representative who tagged me in and said some of our Muslim brothers and sisters have fears for Friday during their prayer, and the question was posed whether we could be a part of the safety net for them to allow them to pray in peace without fear,” Fatu said.

Mongrel Mob gang member in a leather jacket in this undated image. (Ross Land/Getty Images)

Fatu said that they would not be armed and that members—known for their facial tattoos and leather jackets emblazoned with a bulldog patch—would be “dressed appropriately.”

“We are peacefully securing the inner gated perimeter, with other community members, to allow them to feel at ease,” he said.

Waikato Muslim Association President Asad Mohsin said he appreciated the support. He said he did not view the Mongrel Mob as “gang members.”

“We value them as humans and we appreciate that they value us too,” he said.

'We will support and assist our Muslim brothers and sisters for however long they need us'

Other Mongrel Mob gangs have been seen guarding Muslim buildings in Sydney in neighboring Australia, where the gang has spread in recent decades.

The first of the funerals for the 50 victims of the attacks in Christchurch were held on March 19.

The majority of victims were migrants or refugees. The youngest was a boy of 3, born in New Zealand to Somali refugee parents.

Zaed Mustafa, in a wheelchair, brother of Hamza and son of Khalid Mustafa killed in the March 15 mosque shootings reacts during the burial at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist living in New Zealand has been charged with murder following the attack.

He was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5.

Brenton Tarrant, charged for murder in relation to the mosque attacks, is in Christchurch District Court, New Zealand, on March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald/Pool via Reuters)

Police said they are certain he was the only gunman in the attack but are investigating whether he may have had assistance in planning or execution.

Tarrant wore a GoPro camera from which he live-streamed the attack to Facebook. A 44-year-old man who distributed that live-stream has been charged with violating the country’s objectionable publications law. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Several ethnic minority gangs have shown public support for the Muslim community following the attack.

The head of the Waikato Muslim Association said he hopes gang members will join Muslims for Friday prayers after the Mongrel Mob pledged to guard Hamilton's mosque.

That community support is in contrast to the violent reputation and image of the gangs pumped up by various high-profile cases.

“Until the early 2000s, gang sex and gang rape of women (both referred to as ‘blocking’) was endemic to gang culture,” states the New Zealand government website. “One particularly infamous incident occurred in 1988 when a young woman was kidnapped and taken to a Mongrel Mob convention in Auckland, where she was raped by more than 15 men.”

That practice of gang rape has declined in recent years, pushed down by heavy prison sentences and a switch in focus to selling drugs.

]]>New Zealand Holds First Funerals for Mosque Shooting Victimshttps://www.theepochtimes.com/new-zealand-holds-first-funerals-for-mosque-shooting-victims_2845381.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 08:08:34 +0000CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand—A father and son who fled the civil war in Syria for “the safest country in the world” were buried before hundreds of mourners on March 20, at the first funerals for victims of shootings at two mosques.

The services for Khalid Mustafa, 44, and Hamza Mustafa, 15, came just days after a gunman systematically shot dead 50 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch—a massacre that was broadcast live on Facebook.

Hamza’s high school principal described the late young man as compassionate and hardworking, and also an excellent horse rider who aspired to be a veterinarian.

Those present included Hamza’s younger brother, Zaed, 13, whose arm and leg was wounded during the attack. The boy tried to stand during the ceremony but had to sit back in his wheelchair, one mourner said.

Zaed Mustafa (C) in a wheelchair, brother of Hamza Mustafa and son of Khalid Mustafa, grieves the loss of his brother at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 20, 2019. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

“We tried to not shake his hand, and not touch his hand or his foot, but he refused, he wanted to shake everybody’s hand, he wanted to show everyone that he appreciated them. And that’s amazing,” said Jamil El-Biza, who traveled from Australia to attend the funeral.

The Mustafas had moved to New Zealand in 2018, after spending six years as refugees in Jordan. Mustafa’s wife, Salwa, told Radio New Zealand when the family asked about the land of the Kiwi they were assured “it’s the safest country in the world, the most wonderful country you can go … you will start a very wonderful life there.”

“But it wasn’t [afterall],” Salwa added.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the family should have been safe.

“I cannot tell you how gutting it is to know that a family came here for safety and for refuge,” Ardern said.

Families of those killed had been anxiously awaiting word on when they could bury their loved ones. Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police have now formally identified and released the remains of 21 of those killed.

The burials began soon after Ardern renewed her call for people to speak of the victims rather than the man who killed them.

Meanwhile, a man accused of sharing video footage of the March 15 massacre is being detained until his next court appearance in mid-April. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush believes police officers stopped the gunman on his way to a third attack.

About 30 people wounded in the attacks remain hospitalised as of the evening on March 19. About 10 of them are in critical condition, including a 4-year-old girl.

Australian-born Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, has been charged with murder and is next scheduled to appear in court on April 5. Police said they are certain Tarrant was the only gunman but are still investigating whether he had support from others.

New Zealand’s international spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, confirmed it had not received any relevant information or intelligence before the shootings.

Philip Arps, 44, appeared in a Christchurch court on March 20 facing two charges of distributing the killer’s livestream video of the attack on the Al Noor mosque, the first mosque that was attacked, a violation of the country’s objectionable publications law. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Arps, heavily tattooed and dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, has not entered a plea. He remained expressionless during the hearing, his hands clasped behind his back.

Judge Stephen O’Driscoll denied him bail.

Court documents accuse Arps of distributing the video on March 16, just one day after the massacre.

Bush said police believe they know where the gunman was going for a third attack when officers rammed his car off the road but will not say more because it is still an active investigation.

In a 74-page manifesto released before the attack, Tarrant said he was going to attack two mosques in Christchurch and then one in the town of Ashburton, if he made it that far.

Bush also revised his timeline, saying officers rammed the suspect 21 minutes after the first emergency call rather than 36 minutes. Bush said U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have travelled to New Zealand to help with the investigation.

Abizar Valibhai, of Christchurch, said the burials mark an important moment, adding there would be many waves of emotions to come for families of the victims.

“They are fathers, they are mothers, they are brothers, they are sisters, they are wives,” Valibhai said. “There are a lot of things that will be shattered.”

Residents of this close-knit city have created makeshift memorials near the two targeted mosques and at the city botanical gardens, where a mountain of flowers has grown by the day.

Janna Ezat whose son, Hussein Al-Umari, was killed in the Al Noor mosque, visited the memorial at the gardens and was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love. She knelt amid the flowers and wept, grabbing at daisies and lilies as though she might find her boy in them.

She is comforted by reports that Hussein confronted the killer, charging at him after surviving the first spray of bullets.

“I’m very happy,” Ezat said. “He is a hero and I am proud of him.”

By Nick Perry, Juliet Williams and Kristen Gelineau

]]>Dutch Shooting: Letter Suggests Possible Terrorist Motivehttps://www.theepochtimes.com/dutch-shooting-letter-suggests-possible-terrorist-motive_2844525.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 07:04:40 +0000Authorities in the Netherlands are investigating the possibility that there was a terrorist motive behind the killing of three people on a tram on March 18.

Prosecutors said that they found a letter in the car used to escape by suspect Gokmen Tanis.

The 37-year-old Turkish-born man was arrested after a 7-hour manhunt in the city of Utrecht.

Two other suspects aged 23 and 27 have also been arrested, police said, but it is unknown what part they may have played in the shootings.

“Up to this point, a terrorist motive is seriously being considered,” prosecutors said in a statement, citing “the nature of the shooting and a letter found in the getaway car.”

However, Tanis may have been motivated by personal reasons, not politics, police said.

“Other motives are not being ruled out,” they said in the statement.

Tanis had a known criminal history, according to local broadcaster RTV Utrecht, including a shooting incident in 2013.

He was detained earlier this month on suspicion of rape but was released on March 1, the Utrecht District Court said in a statement.

Tanis is due to face the rape charge in July, the court said.

A still image taken from CCTV footage shows Gokmen Tanis, a suspect in a shooting in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on March 18, 2019. (Utrecht Police/Handout via Reuters)

Dutch law stipulates that he be brought before a judge by Thursday, March 21 but does not necessarily have to be charged.

One local businessman told BBC Turkish that Tanis had in the past fought in the Russian republic of Chechnya, a well-known jihadist haven.

“He was arrested because of his connections with [the ISIS terrorist group] but released later,” the businessman said, according to the BBC.

Prosecutors are yet to find a link between the victims, a 19-year-old woman and two men aged 28 and 49, and Tanis.

Three other people were critically injured in the shooting, which took place in a quiet residential neighborhood known for its sizable immigrant community.

Mahmut Tanis, an uncle of the suspect who lives in the Netherlands, told Turkish media that he doubted Tanis had a terrorist motive.

“Looking at my nephew’s condition, the possibility that what he did was a terror attack is low,” he said, according to Reuters, but added that he had not seen him in years.

Utrecht is a picturesque city with around 340,000 residents. It went into lockdown following the shooting.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian instead focused on Daley’s “rank hypocrisy” after a video emerged of him telling a Blue Mountains pub forum in September that highly-skilled Asian migrants were forcing Australian-born workers to “flee” Sydney.

“Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs,” he said.

“So there’s a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs.”

Two months later, he held a press conference in Parliament House exclusively for Chinese media in which he reportedly said the Chinese have “a great sense of energy, entrepreneurship, great business people … you’ve lifted the spirit of this nation.”

“What the issue is at hand today is the two-faced hypocrisy of the leader of the opposition, that’s the issue,” Berejiklian told reporters.

Pushed on whether she was offended by the racial nature of the comments, Berejiklian said: “Of course there are offensive elements to what he said, no doubt about that, but what rankles with me the most is his hypocrisy.”

She argued: “He thinks he can say one thing to one group of people, and another thing to another group.”

Berejiklian in May 2018 slammed then-Labor leader Luke Foley for his comments on “white flight” when he suggested Anglo families were leaving parts of Sydney.

The premier called Foley’s comments “deeply divisive, dangerous, and nasty,” adding that he’d “crossed the line.”

“Many people would have interpreted them as involving an appeal to racism. You can have a debate about congestion or housing affordability or quality of life without singling out racial groups.”

Daley Ads Appear in Chinese Newspapers

Daley advertisements have shown up on several Chinese-Australian newspapers, as he faces criticism over comments he made about Asian migrants taking local jobs.

Accompanying a large photo of Daley and his family, is his key election slogans—“schools and hospitals before stadiums” and “putting people first”—written in Mandarin.

The ads also include the head shots of 10 Labor candidates.

Daley on Tuesday admitted he could have used better language and apologised if anyone was offended by the remarks made at a pub forum in the Blue Mountains in September.

In an apparent move to reassure parts of Sydney’s Asian community, Labor on Wednesday took out full front-page advertisements in at least three locally-produced Chinese newspapers—the Australian Chinese Daily, Australian New Express Daily, and Daily Chinese Herald.

It’s understood an ad is also featured on the front page of the Sing Tao Daily Australia.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday denounced the state opposition leader’s comments, as he announced a cut to Australia’s immigration intake.

He described the remarks as “appalling,” “very upsetting,” and “offensive.”

“I reject the comments and I think that Bill Shorten should disassociate himself as well,” he told ABC News.

Shorten acknowledged on Tuesday that the comment was “very poorly worded” but said Daley had apologised.

Daley Says No Part in Chinese Paper Ads

Daley says he played no part in organising full-page ads featuring him on the front of several Chinese language newspapers after he was criticised suggesting Asian migrants were taking local jobs.

“It’s not something I had any role in,” Daley told reporters on Wednesday.

“I’m not (a racist), I never have been, people who know me know that I’m not,” Daley said.

“I did use words that I shouldn’t have, I accept that and my apology is unqualified.”

The opposition leader said he’d discussed the comments with some Labor MPs including Kogarah MP Chris Minns who later issued a bilingual statement on Chinese social media platform WeChat.

“The point he wanted to make was that everyone deserves a fair go,” she told reporters.

“The main issues people raised with me was they are really tired of this government not looking after them.”

“I reject the comments and I think that Bill Shorten should disassociate himself as well,” he told ABC News.

]]>Mozambique Mourns as Cyclone Idai’s Toll Rises Above 300https://www.theepochtimes.com/millions-hit-over-200-dead-after-cyclone-idai-in-mozambique_2845299.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 04:54:19 +0000CHIPINGE, Zimbabwe—Mozambique on Wednesday began three days of national mourning for more than 200 victims of Cyclone Idai, one of the most destructive storms southern Africa has experienced in decades. In neighboring Zimbabwe, state media said the death toll was above 100.

The full extent of the devastation will only be known once floodwaters from torrential rains, expected to continue into Thursday, recede. It will be days before Mozambique’s inundated plains drain toward the Indian Ocean, and aid groups have warned the waters are still rising.

People have been reported clinging to rooftops and trees since the cyclone roared in over the weekend. The United Nations humanitarian office said the town of Buzi, with some 200,000 people, was at risk of becoming at least partially submerged.

“Flood waters are predicted to rise significantly in the coming days and 350,000 people are at risk,” the U.N. office said.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa received a somber welcome in the hard-hit mountain community of Chimanimani near the border with Mozambique. Zimbabwean officials have said some 350 people may have died.

Some bodies from Zimbabwe have been swept down the mountainside into Mozambique. “Some of the peasants in Mozambique were calling some of our people to say, ‘We see bodies, we believe those bodies are coming from Zimbabwe,’” said July Moyo, the minister of local government.

The Red Cross says that as much as 90 percent of Mozambique’s central port city of Beira has been damaged or destroyed by tropical Cyclone Idai.

Mozambique’s president late Tuesday said more than 200 people were confirmed dead there. President Filipe Nyusi after flying over the affected region on Monday said he expected more than 1,000 deaths.

Aid workers were shocked as they arrived in the badly hit Mozambique port city of Beira, estimated to be 90 percent destroyed. Its 500,000 residents are scrambling for food, fuel and medicine. Some neighborhoods are below sea level.

“The power of the cyclone is visible everywhere with shipping containers moved like little Lego blocks,” the aid group CARE’s Mozambique country director Marc Nosbach said.

International aid has started trickling in to ease the crisis, while churches in Zimbabwe collected supplies to send on.

“Everyone is doubling, tripling, quadrupling whatever they were planning” in terms of aid, said Caroline Haga of the Red Cross in Beira. “It’s much larger than anyone could ever anticipate.”

On Wednesday, the Emirates News Agency cited the Emirates Red Crescent as saying that the United Arab Emirates would provide 18.3 million dirhams ($4.9 million) to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Zimbabwe’s president said a planeload of aid from the UAE was expected to arrive in the capital, Harare, later Wednesday.

The chairman of the African Union Commission said the continental body would provide $350,000 in immediate support to the countries.

The European Union has released 3.5 million euros ($3.9 million) in emergency aid, and the United Kingdom pledged up to 6 million pounds ($7.9 million). Tanzania’s military has airlifted 238 tons of food and medicine, and three Indian naval ships have been diverted to Beira to help with evacuations of stranded people and other efforts.

Sacha Myers of the nonprofit Save the Children described rising floodwaters and “rivers and dams bursting their banks.” She said getting aid to affected areas was difficult as roads and bridges across the region have been washed away or submerged.

Now hunger and illness are growing concerns. Crops across the region have been destroyed. Waterborne diseases are likely to spread.

“There are large areas where people are really finding it difficult to find sources of clean water,” Gert Verdonck, the emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders in Beira, said in a statement. He added: “On top of all of that, there’s the issue of how to treat people who fall sick, with so many health centers damaged or destroyed.”

By Farai Mutsaka

]]>Girl on Amber Alert Found, Father Taken Into Custodyhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/girl-on-amber-alert-found-father-taken-into-custody_2845244.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 03:14:19 +0000MARKHAM, Ont.—A five−year−old girl who was the subject of an Amber Alert north of Toronto on Tuesday, March 19, was found safe after a few hours.

York regional police said the girl’s father was taken into custody but they do not know if he has committed a criminal offence as the investigation continues.

Police had issued the alert Tuesday afternoon after the girl was allegedly taken from her classroom in Markham, Ont., by her father.

Jaffri, 25, is described as having brown skin, average build, standing at 6-foot-1 with short brown hair and a tattoo on his right arm that says “Jannah” while wearing a navy blue dress coat and black cargo pants.

Police looking for 5-year-old Jannah Jaffri after they say her dad 25-year-old Soloman Jaffri walked into her classroom at Armadale Public School in #Markham today & abducted her. @YRP say Jaffri is not supposed to have access to the child. Last seen getting into a mini-van taxi pic.twitter.com/D7GZ3TOCZd

Police said he was not supposed to have access to his daughter and investigators received some information that caused concern.

“The child was reported missing, we knew that the father came to pick her up, we had information that he was not supposed to have access to her at that time, so we were essentially dealing with it to make sure that we found her and we could find out that she was safe,” police spokeswoman Const. Laura Nicolle said.

“Certainly it was a very big concern for us to find her quickly and we’re very, very relieved, obviously, to find out that she’s safe.”

A wonderful outcome to this #AmberAlert. Here’s Const Laura Nicolle from @YRP on how Jannah Jaffri was found safely. It’s still unclear if her father Soloman will be charged. I’m told police are still investigating pic.twitter.com/8vzW4zqMGw

Police said the pair was picked up by a minivan cab and dropped off at a second location, where they got into another vehicle.

This is the mall parking lot off New Delhi Drive where Soloman Jaffri and his 5-year-old daughter Jannah Jafri were last seen getting out of a minivan taxi and transferring to another vehicle. A number of @YRP vehicles just left in a hurry #AmberAlertpic.twitter.com/dnx1FO23IL

Beware of the Tax Man if You Ever Win the Lottery, Says Money Guruhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/beware-of-the-tax-man-if-you-ever-win-the-lottery-says-money-guru_2845135.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 01:47:07 +0000If you are hoping to be lucky enough to win the $550 million Powerball lottery jackpot, it might pay off to take a moment to consider the tax implications according to a financial law expert.

People who find themselves fortunate enough to win the jackpot will face a big decision, according to Private Client and Wealth Preservation Group Chair K. Eli Akhavan.

Akhavan, who is also a partner at CKR Law in New York, reveals the winning ticket holder can either take the money as either a lump sum or a regular payment, which is transferred over the course of about 30 years. The regular payment, which is less common, includes an immediate amount plus 29 consecutive ones.

The Powerball prize is touted to be the 10th largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history. The largest single-winner prize was the $1.6 billion Mega Millions jackpot, which an anonymous South Carolina resident claimed earlier this month. The individual reportedly decided for a lump sum payment of about $490.6 million.

RT if you’d like to WIN the WORLD RECORD #MegaMillions JACKPOT of just $1.6 BILLION!

However, winners who take the prize in lump sum form will be hit with heavy taxes from authorities.

Akhavan claims the actual amount a winner takes home is much less than the headline jackpot number. He estimates the jackpot winner would receive about $335 million, from which 24 percent or $80.4 million would immediately be withheld to pay federal taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is also expected to dip into the winnings and slug the winner with the highest federal income bracket of 37 percent for individuals with incomes exceeding $500,000.

Any discrepancy between the 37 percent income tax rate and 24 percent federal withholding rate would also have to be paid when the winner files a tax return at the end of the year. Akhavan estimates this would be 13 percent or $43.5 million.

In addition to this, state taxes of up to 8.82 percent may apply depending on where the winner’s registered place of residence is. This would be as much as $29.5 million according to Akhavan. The winnings are not subject to the net investment income tax rate of 3.8 percent.

After all deductions, except for state taxes, the net winnings are estimated be just 38.4 percent of the total prize pool at $211 million.

However, if the winner decides to give the money away only, only amounts of up to $15,000 can be paid without bringing further tax penalties.

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart. Just Follow, Dm and Retweet.
Mavis Charity Foundation. pic.twitter.com/0wu0SCSm4u

Akhavan believes lottery winners can avoid unnecessary losses by hiring a legal representative to help manage their wealth.

“We hear all too often about lotto winners whose funds are mismanaged and they end up squandering their fortune,” he told Fox News. “A financial adviser should be selected to help prudently invest these assets … I frequently advise my clients on the use of sophisticated trusts and other techniques to ensure maximum protection.”

The Powerball lottery will be drawn on Wednesday, March 20. The odds of winning are less than one in 292 million.

]]>Olympic Hopeful Hong Kong Swimmer Kenneth To Dies at 26https://www.theepochtimes.com/olympic-hopeful-hong-kong-swimmer-kenneth-to-dies-at-26_2844993.html
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 01:30:34 +0000Kenneth To, a record-breaking Hong Kong-Australian swimmer who had his sights on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, died suddenly after a training session in the United States, officials said on March 19. He was 26.

To, who holds 17 Hong Kong records and won a silver medal as part of Australia’s 4×100 meter medley relay squad at the 2013 world championships, was in the United States for a three-month training program at the University of Florida.

To, who was born in Hong Kong and raised in Australia, died on Monday. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Record-breaking Hong Kong swimmer Kenneth To King-him has died suddenly aged 26 in the US, the Hong Kong Sports Institute has confirmed in a statement. pic.twitter.com/6qufK5sHcn

He was also a member of the Australian teams at the 2014 Commonwealth Games that captured gold in the 4x100m freestyle and silver in the 4x100m medley.

World swimming governing body FINA said in a statement it learned with “immense sadness” about To’s death and described him as a reference and example for the youth in the territory.

Australian swimmer James Magnussen posted a tribute to To on Instagram, saying: “Shocking news to hear of the passing of my competitor but most of all, friend – @kennethkhto. We’ve been racing each other and making teams together since we were 16.

“He will remain one of the fiercest competitors I’ve ever stood on the blocks next to. I firmly believe that for a long period he was pound for pound, the best swimmer in the world.

‘Ferocious’ Cyclone Trevor Hits North QLDhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/ferocious-cyclone-trevor-hits-north-qld_2845102.html
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 23:49:51 +0000The mayor of a remote far north Queensland community says Cyclone Trevor was “ferocious” and the worst he has endured.

The cyclone made landfall just south of Lockhart River as a category three storm late on March 20, dumping more than 200mm of rain in just six hours and bringing wind gusts of more than 130km/h.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Trevor made landfall on the Cape York Peninsula on Tuesday and is expected to plow westward into the Gulf of Carpentaria, threatening parts of the Northern Territory later this week: https://t.co/QdWUW6PsFXpic.twitter.com/dRT0bvIO8Q

It has since weakened to a category one system and is expected to pass just north of Aurukun on the west coast of Cape York before re-intensifying into a category four storm as it pushes towards the Northern Territory.

Lockhart River Mayor Wayne Butcher said it was a difficult night.

“It was ferocious—the wind was just constant between 4 p.m. and midnight,” he told AAP on Wednesday morning.

“This was probably the worst one … this one basically sat near the community and hounded us for hours.

“I’ve got a timber house and I could feel it shaking.”

Lockhart River resident Hannah Brown posted on Facebook that they had spent the evening “getting absolutely smashed.”

“We’re okay at the Lockhart River aerodrome, lots of destruction after a horrid night,” she wrote.

Cr Butcher said he would spend the morning in the community assessing the damage with police and other emergency crews.

He said initial reports suggested no major infrastructure damage.

‘We’ve got a few trees across houses and a few sheds have gone flying,” he said.

The cyclone warning for the east coast has since been cancelled, but the danger is not entirely over.

Jess Gardner from the Bureau of Meteorology has warned flooding will be a high risk across the cape over the coming days.

“We’re going to see large falls right up to next Friday with chances of flash flooding,” she told AAP.

“It will be very dangerous.”

A moderate flood warning remains in place for the Daintree River, with a general flood warning for the Mossman River.

Roads and schools remain closed across the cape and residents are warned not to risk driving on flooded roads.

Sitting in Garage running up generators.
15 mins each.
Using big Industrial Fan as a load source.
And sitting in front of it…..
Big one 6.5 kva, 2 small 2kva each. Or joined with Parallel cable (as they are ATM) 4kva
Cyclone Trevor a long way away.
These due for a run anyway. pic.twitter.com/sY0el1WjVi

Airbnb Murderer Goes to Prison Over Dispute on Unpaid Billhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/airbnb-murderer-goes-to-prison-over-unpaid-bill_2845070.html
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 23:29:14 +0000A Melbourne man was sentenced to 11 years behind bars on March 19 over a deadly dispute with an Airbnb guest about an unpaid bill.

Jason Colton, 42, was found guilty of fatally bashing and choking to death an Airbnb guest over A$210 (US$149) owed to another man.

Victim Ramis Jonuzi, 36, died on the front lawn of a Brighton East home where he had rented a room for 10 days back in October 2017.

A Melbourne man with a violent criminal history has been jailed for 11 years for killing an Airbnb guest.https://t.co/PFQUTaDoXF

Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth ruled Colton, who was living in the garage, had instigated leasors Craig Levy and Ryan Smart to continuously assault Jonuzi until he died. Levy and Smart are already in jail for manslaughter over the attack and serving maximum 7.5- and 9.5-year sentences respectively.

Jason Colton’s housemates are already serving jail time after confessing to the manslaughter, which arose from a dispute concerning a $210 unpaid accommodation bill. #9Newshttps://t.co/HYN181bTuv

Colton also pleaded guilty to manslaughter, though the plea was not accepted until prosecution evidence wrapped up in his murder trial earlier in March.

Hollingworth ordered Colton to serve at least eight years before being eligible for parole, describing the attack as cowardly, vicious and unprovoked against what seemed to be a restrained and defenceless man who was just trying to flee the scene.

A man who pleaded guilty over the fatal bashing of an Airbnb guest in Melbourne will spend at least eight years behind bars. #9Newshttps://t.co/5lKi71FQJf

The fight began when Colton participated in a rental dispute “that was none of your business.”

“You were by far the most physically violent and were involved for the longest time,” Hollingworth said according to the Australian Associated Press, noting he could only have done so much damage with the help of Levy and Smart.

Colton allegedly punched Jonuzi until he was unconscious before Levy and Smart carried the unconscious body outside and Colton dragged him around the front yard by the chin.

With his knee on his victim’s back, Colton is believed to have choked Jonuzi, and later tried to have Levy hit the struggling man with a wrench. Levy refused and instead called the police.

“Jonuzi did not fight back, and posed no threat to any of you at any stage,” Hollingworth said.

Colton allegedly told police a “pack of lies” after the killing, accusing Jonuzi of being the primary aggressor and downplaying the nature and extent of the violence.

A man who choked his housemate to death over unpaid rent has been called a ‘disgraceful liar’ by a judge for trying to pin… https://t.co/qhicOn2IqX

Hollingworth claimed Colton still called his victim a “scumbag” who deserved everything he got even after finding-out Jonuzi had died.

In a pre-sentence hearing the assault on Jonuzi, it became clear this was not Colton’s first violent attack on a housemate.

He previously served three months of a five-month jail sentence in Norway during 2013 for hitting a man in the head and holding him by the throat while he slept in one of several attacks after they argued about living arrangements.

Hollingworth said Colton had reasonable prospects of rehabilitation and noted he showed some signs of remorse, though fell short of full responsibility or acknowledging he had anger management issues.

The Australian Associated Press contributed to this article.

]]>Seeking to End Suffering by Ending Energy Povertyhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/seeking-to-end-suffering-by-ending-energy-poverty_2844924.html
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 22:56:37 +0000A former Texas state lawmaker is spearheading a campaign against radical environmentalists and powerful international organizations, whose policies keep people in developing nations in desperate poverty and misery by discouraging the development of electricity-based networks worldwide.

Jason Isaac is taking aim at those promoting the scourge of “energy poverty,” which keeps people in underdeveloped countries poor and sick, shaving decades off life expectancies on the African continent and elsewhere by making it difficult for consumers to access electric power for their daily needs.

Isaac represented District 45 in the Texas House of Representatives from January 2011 to January 2019 as a Republican. While there, he was a member of the Energy Resources Committee.

Isaac recently joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan research institute in Austin. At TPPF, he is senior manager and distinguished fellow of the “Life: Powered” initiative, whose mission “is to ensure that Americans understand the connections between energy, prosperity, and freedom.”

Energy Poverty

The idea of energy poverty itself is a media-savvy, pro-economic growth reframing of an issue in a way that is apparently calculated to put left-wing, anti-growth environmentalists on defense.

An educational video produced by Life: Powered explains the importance of combating energy poverty in the developing world in order to save human lives.

Irfan Ali, chairman of Tharpak Consortium, says that “life in itself without energy is poverty.”

“Why? Because imagine trying to do what we do on a daily basis without energy. We would not be able to work. We would not be able to educate our kids. We would not be able to do anything without energy.”

Worldwide, 1.3 billion people do not have electricity, according to the video. Another 2.5 billion have extremely limited access to electricity. This means that 3.8 billion people on the planet—out of the world total of about 7.7 billion human beings—are suffering from energy poverty.

“You’re closing on almost half the population of the world … living in energy poverty and that’s why I say it is the leading problem facing mankind today,” explains Frank Clemente, professor emeritus at Penn State University.

“When we get those people access to electricity,” Isaac told The Epoch Times, “it’s amazing what happens. You get improved air quality.”

“Roughly a million people around the world die every year from respiratory illnesses that are caused by indoor air pollution,” he said. “When you have people that are burning, wood, coal, dung in their homes without any kind of pollution control, their indoor particulate matter is awful and it leads to respiratory illnesses.”

Caleb Rossiter, an adjunct lecturer at American University, explains in the video the harm caused to people in Africa when they don’t have electricity.

“Energy poverty is when you go talk to a grandmother in Swaziland and you realize inside that she’s cooking and lighting and staying warm by a fire of some material in the middle of the hut and you find out from her that the material … is dried cow dung.”

About one billion people live in Africa and only about 25 percent have access to electricity at home, he said. African life expectancy is 55 years, but in the energy-abundant United States and most developed countries, it is about 76 years.

“That’s 20 years of life lost per person,” Rossiter said.

“Why do I say that’s linked to electricity? Because electricity is what you use to clean water. To make sure you can drink the water without getting sick, without your kids getting diarrhea, dehydrating, and dying. Water is why Africa’s infant mortality rate is about 80 kids out of 1,000 born [who] die before their fifth birthday; in the United States, it’s well under 10. Clean water is the holy grail of African health and development.”

A woman pours water from a well at Malkohi refugee camp in Jimeta, Adamawa State, Nigeria on Feb. 19, 2019. (LUIS TATO/AFP/Getty Images)

Advocacy Groups

But are there people who are actually trying to prevent developing nations’ populations from getting hooked up to an electric power grid?

Sadly, there are many of them, according to Isaac.

There is an untold number of advocacy groups that “are trying to force us to go 100 percent renewable, they mean wind and solar, [but] they don’t talk about the environmental hazards” posed by those methods of power generation.

“We have just been scared to death here in the United States that the world’s going to end in 11 years and 9 months and 20 days because of CO2,” he said, adding that polling shows more than 70 percent of Americans believe the false notion that carbon dioxide, the naturally occurring gas we constantly expel from our lungs in order to stay alive, is bad for plants.

In fact, photosynthesis, the process by which green plants and some other organisms grow, would be impossible without CO2, as schoolchildren used to learn in science class. And the manmade global-warming hypothesis that human-generated carbon dioxide, as opposed to solar activity and other natural factors, is driving supposedly catastrophic climate change lacks monolithic support among the scientific community.

“We are being lied to, and people are believing it,” Isaac said.

There is intense “pressure to be so-called green” and embrace supposedly renewable energy sources like wind and solar power across the globe, Isaac said, and “they’re getting it mostly from the United Nations.”

“It is perceived as free and it’s renewable and reliable when in fact it’s none of those.”

The U.N. “has become this heavy-handed bureaucratic government—and it really is a form of government exerting its control throughout the world—keeping two and a half billion people in poverty.”

The U.N. applies pressure by scoring corporations according to ESG goals. ESG stands for environmental, societal, and governance.

“It’s almost like a credit rating for how you run your business and encouraging people and countries not to invest in those companies that may not meet their ESG goals,” Isaac explained.

The U.N., which controls the World Bank, threatens to withhold money and launch boycotts, he said.

In the United States, the San Francisco-based Bank of the West succumbed to environmentalist pressure and announced last year it would no longer invest in businesses unless they were moving away from fossil fuel exploration.

The decision outraged elected officials in energy-rich Colorado and Wyoming. Wyoming Treasurer Mark Gordon blasted the bank. “The Bank of the West has said they will no longer fund coal, oil, and natural gas projects—key components to the Wyoming economy and Wyoming way of life,” Gordon said. “Well, under my watch, Wyoming investment dollars will not be placed with the Bank of the West.”

American University’s Rossiter, who was the Democratic candidate in New York’s 31st congressional district in 1998, was fired by the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies for questioning the rigid orthodoxy of man-made global warming theorists in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Investor’s Business Daily reported in 2014. He argued in the column that abandoning fossil fuels in Africa, as international actors are pressuring the nations on that land mass to do, will lead to needless widespread suffering.

But pressure to do the politically correct thing in energy policy is also intense abroad.

Isaac recalled meeting with government energy officials in Myanmar in August 2016 as part of an official trade mission to promote Texas energy.

“The electricity went out three times during our meeting. And we were talking about opportunities for them to utilize Texas natural gas for electricity generation. They were more interested in talking about wind and solar.”

This undue emphasis on wind and solar power hurts non-Americans and Americans alike.

In Texas, “we heavily subsidize the production of wind and solar electricity … [and] we’ve actually seen where wind producers are paying the grid to take their electricity,” Isaac said.

“Imagine going to a restaurant and being paid to eat their food. How could the restaurant across the street that’s expecting you to pay for the food compete with someone that’s paying the customers to eat their food?”

Federal and state subsidies are taking their toll on the grid, leading to decreased investment in clean coal technology, he said. “Why would anybody invest in new coal or natural gas or nuclear generation when you’re competing against someone that’s paying their customers to take their product?”

As a result, reserve margins of electricity in Texas are “dropping dangerously low,” he said. The normal margin is about 12 percent to guard against the arrival of extreme cold or extreme heat but the current margin in the Lone Star State has fallen to around 7 percent “because we’re just not seeing investment in new power generation.”

If the reserve dips too low during a hot summer or a bitterly cold winter, “the power will start going out and that’s when people will immediately go back into poverty.”

This is what is happening right now in Venezuela “where they just don’t have access to electricity and they’ve been without power for days,” he said. “The last thing we need to be doing is having policies that replicate what’s happening in Venezuela.”

OSLO, Norway—Norsk Hydro, one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, battled on March 19 to contain a cyber attack which halted parts of its production, the latest example of the damage hackers can cause to business and industry.

The company shut several metal extrusion and rolled products plants, which transform aluminum ingots into components for car makers, builders, and other industries, while its giant smelters in Norway were largely operating on a manual basis.

“This is a classic ransomware attack,” Chief Financial Officer Eivind Kallevik told a news conference, adding that the company had not identified the hackers. “The situation is quite severe.”

The Norwegian National Security Authority (NNSA), the state agency in charge of cybersecurity, said the attack used a virus known as LockerGoga, a relatively new strain of so-called ransomware which encrypts computer files and demands payment to unlock them.

Kallevik, who could not turn on his desktop computer or access files, would not say whether a specific sum had been asked for. However, when asked if the company planned to pay to unlock its systems, he said the intention was to restore them from backup servers.

“We have good back-up systems and we have plans on how to restore it,” he said.

The attack began in the United States late on March 18 and escalated overnight, hitting IT systems across most of the company’s activities and forcing staff to issue updates via social media.

“It is too early to indicate the operational and financial impact, as well as timing to resolve the situation,” Hydro said in a regulatory filing via the Oslo Stock Exchange.

However, Kallevik said the financial impact was limited so far.

“It is mostly direct labor: some of the activities that we use computers to do, today we use manual labor. We have to add some more people,” he told Reuters.

News of Hydro’s plant outages pushed aluminum prices to a three-month high on the London Metal Exchange.

The LockerGoga malware is not widely used by cybercrime groups, cybersecurity researchers said but has been linked to an attack on French engineering consultancy Altran Technologies in January.

Haakon Bergsjoe, head of NNSA’s National Cyber Security Centre, said there were no reports of other companies affected on March 19. All major Norwegian companies had been warned in the wake of the attack on Hydro, he told Reuters.

The last publicly acknowledged cyber attack in Norway was on software firm Visma, when hackers allegedly working on behalf of Chinese intelligence breached its network to steal secrets from its clients.

Plant Closures

Companies and governments have become increasingly concerned about the damage hackers can cause to industrial systems and critical national infrastructure following a number of high-profile cyber attacks.

In 2017, hackers later accused by the United States of working for the North Korean government unleashed billions of dollars worth of damage with the Wannacry ransomware virus, which crippled hospital, banks and other companies worldwide.

Pyongyang has denied the allegations.

Other cyber attacks have downed electricity grids and transport systems in recent years, and an attack on Italian oil services firm Saipem late last year destroyed more than 300 of the company’s computers.

Hydro makes products across the aluminum value chain, from the refinement of alumina raw material via metal ingots to bespoke components used in cars and construction.

The company’s hydroelectric power plants were running as normal on isolated IT systems unaffected by the outage, as was the alumina operation and smelters located outside Norway, including in Qatar and Brazil, Hydro said.

Hydro, which has 36,000 employees in 40 countries, made a net profit of 4.3 billion Norwegian crowns ($505 million) last year on sales of 159.4 billion.

At its headquarters in the suburbs of Oslo, signs at the entrances warned employees not to log on to the IT system.

By Gwladys Fouche & Terje Solsvik

]]>Kazakhstan’s Leader Nazarbayev Resigns After Three Decades in Powerhttps://www.theepochtimes.com/kazakhstans-leader-nazarbayev-resigns-after-three-decades-in-power_2844961.html
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 21:35:14 +0000ALMATY—Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev unexpectedly resigned on Mach 19 after three decades in power, in what appeared to be the first step in a choreographed political transition that will see him retain considerable sway.

Known as “Papa” to many Kazakhs, the 78-year-old former steelworker and Communist party apparatchik have ruled the vast oil and gas-rich Central Asian nation since 1989, when it was still part of the Soviet Union.

Bestowed by parliament with the official title of “The Leader of the Nation”, he was the last Soviet-era leader still in office and oversaw extensive market reforms while remaining widely popular in his country of 18 million people.

“I have taken a decision, which was not easy for me, to resign as president,” Nazarbayev said in a nationwide TV address, flanked by his country’s blue and yellow flags, before signing a decree terminating his powers from March 20.

“As the founder of the independent Kazakh state, I see my task now in facilitating the rise of a new generation of leaders who will continue the reforms that are underway in the country.”

But Nazarbayev, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he would retain key security council and party leadership positions and hand over the presidency to a loyal ally for the rest of his term, which ends in April 2020.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, speaker of the upper house of parliament, will take over as Kazakhstan’s acting president for the remainder of his term in line with the constitution, Nazarbayev said.

The Kremlin said Nazarbayev and Putin had spoken by phone on March 19, but gave no details of their conversation.

Smother Transition?

“(Nazarbayev) will continue to some extent to oversee things, so it is not like he has cut the cord totally—he still has his fingers in the pie,” said Theodor Kirschner of Capitulum Asset Management in Berlin.

The new acting president, 65-year-old Tokayev, is a Moscow-educated career diplomat fluent in Kazakh, Russian, English, and Chinese who has previously served as Kazakhstan’s foreign minister and prime minister.

While praising Tokayev as “a man who can be trusted to lead Kazakhstan”, Nazarbayev—who has three daughters—stopped short of endorsing him as his preferred heir.

“We expect Tokayev to be an interim figure,” said Camilla Hagelund, an analyst at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft. “The real question is, who will be Kazakhstan’s third president.”

Kazakhstan is scheduled to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections next year.

Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga, the most politically ambitious of his children, is a senator and once led a political party of her own. Another close relative, his nephew Samat Abish, is the No.2 official on the National Security Committee.

The head of state security, 53-year-old Karim Masimov, is also a close Nazarbayev confidant. He has served twice as prime minister and also worked as the president’s chief of staff.

But regardless of who eventually leads Kazakhstan, the transition may slow reforms, including in the key energy sector, according to GlobalData analyst Will Scargill.

“Although Nazarbayev will retain some key roles, his decision to resign will doubtless slow policy-making as political dynamics are restructured,” Scargill said.

Uncertainty could also hurt investor appetite for Kazakhstan’s biggest state-owned companies, which the government planned to list as part of a privatization campaign.

No Tolerance for Dissent

Nazarbayev won 97.7 percent of the vote in the last presidential election in 2015. International observers have long judged elections in Kazakhstan to be neither free nor fair.

Nazarbayev tolerated no dissent or opposition and was criticized by rights groups who accused him of locking up his critics and muzzling the media, allegations he denied.

His government recently pushed through a number of popular policies—including raising public-sector salaries and forcing utilities to cut or freeze tariffs—stoking speculation that he was preparing for a re-election bid.

Members of Nazarbayev’s family have stakes in some of Kazakhstan’s most lucrative assets, including Halyk Bank and firms in sectors ranging from telecoms to fuel trading.